The American College at Louvain was founded in 1857 under the leadership of Bishop Martin J. Spalding, Bishop of Louisville, Kentucky and Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere, Bishop of Detroit, with the encouragement and blessing of Pope Pius IX.

In his prospectus sent to all American bishops, Bishop Spalding stressed the purpose and advantages of the American College: "To afford a suitable opportunity for the pursuit of higher ecclesiastical studies to young men of talent and promise in the United States. The course of study adopted at Louvain is of the highest grade, and the professors are among the most learned and eminent ecclesiastics of Europe."

Amalgamation with the Catholic University of Louvain took place in 1897, and, by the time of its fiftieth anniversary in 1907, the American College could boast of international renown, strong support from the United States, and the successful completion of its first major building campaign.

Throughout the First World War, the American College, under the leadership of Rector Jules De Becker, served as an emergency hospital and dispensary for food and clothing, ministering to as many as fifteen hundred people a day. After the war, citizens of Louvain would also learn that many of the treasures of the University of Louvain, especially the famous mediaeval statue Sedes Sapientiae, had been secretly stored throughout the war at the American College.

Following the First World War, the American College lived through the pains of growth and post-war reconstruction, achieving stability by 1939 when the Second World War was on the horizon. It was in fact in December of 1939, when seminarians left for their Christmas vacations, that the College felt obliged to close. Despite the heavy bombardment of Louvain, the buildings of the American College continued to stand and housed the remnants of the university library, which had been burned for a second time.

In 1949 the American Bishops debated the future of the American College. In the end, convinced about the value and need of Louvain-trained priests for the United States, and thanks to strong personal backing from Bishop Russell J. McVinney, the Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, they voted to reopen the College in 1952 under the rectorship of Father, later Bishop, Thomas F. Maloney of the Diocese of Providence.

In the years since the Second World War, the American College has contributed hundreds of priests to the pastoral and academic life of the Church in the United States and has seen the successful completion of two major building renovation programs. And in the years following the Second Vatican Council, the College has greatly transformed and enhanced its seminary program of priestly formation. Its formation faculty provides skills for ministry in homiletics and liturgical leadership, pastoral counseling, and parish leadership. To complement its seminary program, the College has also developed ongoing formation programs for priests and religious interested in graduate degree work at the University of Louvain or in a personalized time of sabbatical renewal.

[Cf. article about the American College written in 1913 by Rector Jules DeBecker for the [old] Catholic Encyclopedia.]

 A newly published pictorial history of the American College is available through the American College's Louvain office. It is priced at 25€ or US$30, plus postage. Please contact us to purchase your copy, send an email to the following link: Pictorial History Order