San Carlos Seminary

San Carlos Seminary is the archdiocesan seminary of Manila and the first diocesan seminary established in the Philippines. Its birth was decreed by King Philip V of Spain who, on 28 April 1702, ordered the establishment in Manila of a seminary for the formation of the diocesan clergy as envisioned by the Council of Trent. The King’s Royal Cédula stated: “We decided – that as sacred canons and Pontifical Bulls are for having a seminary for the young in our Cathedral Churches to assist at divine worship and at the same time be imbibed with the sciences (a conciliar seminary) be established and funded by our Royal Hacienda in that Metropolis.”

The seminary building was finally completed five years later across the street facing the archbishop’s residence in Intramuros. On 8 December 1707, it was blessed and inaugurated by Archbishop Francisco Cuesta and named the Royal Seminary of San Clemente in honor of the reigning Pope Clement XI.

In 1715 the name of the seminary was changed to Real Seminario de San Felipe, in honor of the king’s patron saint. The next decade, civil authorities turned San Felipe into a university, so the seminarians had to take most of their Philosophy and Theology courses at the Jesuits’ Colegio de San José and at the Dominicans’ Colegio de Santo Tomás. But the University of San Felipe was short-lived and by 1730 the seminary was back to the exclusive use of the seminarians.

Years later, as part of the reforms being instituted, the Jesuits’ College of San Ignacio, located on Real de Palacio (now General Luna Street) and Calle Escuela (now Victoria Street) was converted into the diocesan seminary. In 1786, it was bestowed another name – Real Seminario Conciliar de San Carlos.

The seminary building was heavily damaged during the earthquake of 1889, so again the seminarians had to be moved. The Vincentian Fathers, who had been in charge of the seminary since 1862 in accordance with the wishes of Queen Isabela II, transferred the students to their Casa del Campo in San Marcelino. Three years later Archbishop Pedro Payo constructed a building for seminarians on Arzobispo Street beside the new Church of San Ignacio.

In 1905 Archbishop Jeremias Harty placed San Carlos under the care of the Jesuits. It was later transferred to Cavite with the missionaries of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM) when they took over Trinity College there in 1909. Three years later, San Carlos was back in Intramuros joining the Jesuit-run Colegio de San Francisco Javier on Padre Faura until it was closed in 1913. Archbishop Harty later found another place for the San Carlos Seminary in a renovated building (now Don Bosco) in Mandaluyong and the Vincentians were again put in charge of the seminary.

For two centuries, thus, the archdiocesan seminary was shuttled about, being lodged wherever it was convenient for the archdiocese or for the congregation in charge of it. It was not until the years of calm after the Second World War that the archdiocese could begin the process towards the fulfillment of a vision – to have a permanent building for the formation the archdiocese’s future priests, and to make it the biggest and the most modern seminary in the country.

Through the unstinting and untiring efforts of Archbishop Gabriel Reyes, that cherished dream became a reality in the early 1950’s, when San Carlos was finally granted its own five-hectare site in Guadalupe, Makati. Construction began and, on 24 January 1953, Cardinal Norman Thomas Gilroy, then legate a latere to the ongoing First Plenary Council of the Philippines, inaugurated the new San Carlos building.

Twenty years later, in 1973, Cardinal Rufino Santos installed the first Filipino diocesan rector of San Carlos, Fr. Oscar Cruz, later Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan. The other rectors who succeeded him are the following: Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Bishop Protacio Gungon, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, Bishop Francis de Leon, Bishop Crisostomo Yalung, Msgr. Allen Aganon, Msgr. Jesus-Romulo Rañada, Fr. Edwin Mercado, Msgr. Hernando Coronel and Fr. Joselito Martin.

On 29 June 1987, the building that houses the San Carlos Seminary Graduate School of Theology and the Archbishop Gabriel M. Reyes Memorial Library was completed and blessed by Cardinal Jaime L. Sin, Archbishop of Manila, and Cardinal Ricardo J. Vidal, Archbishop of Cebu.

Some of the historic events that took place in San Carlos Seminary were the following: the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines from 20 January to 17 February 1991, the Sixth Plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences from 10 to 19 January 1995, the grace-filled visit of St. John Paul II on 15 January 1995, and the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal from 22 to 27 January 2001.