Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary (Winona, Minnesota)
Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Seminary is a Roman Catholic, Diocesan-sponsored college seminary in Winona, Minnesota. Located adjacent to the campus of Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, IHM Seminary has provided college-level seminary training since 1948. Seminarians from various dioceses across the United States live at IHM Seminary and take classes from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. While the current bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, the Most Reverend Robert E. Barron, is the president of the advisory board, the rector of the seminary oversees the day-to-day activities. History The early years In 1912, Bishop Patrick Richard Heffron of the Diocese of Winona, founded Saint Mary's College (now Saint Mary's University) on the terraced heights of Winona's Gilmore valley. Bishop Heffron founded the all-male college just two years after being ordained the second bishop of the Winona Diocese. Saint Mary's was founded for the higher education of all young men, but especially for the formation and education of future priests. By 1933, Saint Mary's College was transferred from the Diocese of Winona to the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers). This transfer, however, was not completed for ten years due to the fact that the Holy See viewed Saint Mary's as an approved seminary. The transfer was begun was Bishop Francis Martin Kelly and completed by Coadjutor Bishop Leo Binz. By 1947, five years after the completed transfer of Saint Mary's to the Christian Brothers, Bishop Binz requested advice from Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate at the time, about beginning a diocesan seminary in Winona where seminarians would live at Saint Mary's and take classes therein. By the fall of 1947, a core group of students became the first seminary students at Saint Mary's and were taught by Fathers George Henry Speltz and William Magee, both priests of the Diocese of Winona. The founding years Just a year after Bishop Binz's request for advice from Archbishop Cicognani, Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Seminary was founded and canonically erected on July 16, 1948. Father George Speltz, one of the priest-faculty members of Saint Mary's College, was named the first rector. During its founding year, IHM had an enrollment of twenty-five students. The following year, 1949, the first seminarian, Paul Halloran, graduated from IHM Seminary. In 1950, Bishop Edward Aloysius Fitzgerald became the fourth bishop of Winona and completed the architectural plans for a new seminary dormitory. The Christian Brothers deeded a plot of land from Saint Mary's College to the Diocese of Winona for the construction of the seminary building. Ground was broken by Bishop Fitzgerald on May 1, 1950, and the cornerstone was laid by Archbishop Binz, then the coadjutor of Dubuque. In the spring of 1951, just four years after the request of advice from Archbishop Cicognani, the first students moved into the new seminary building, Kelly Hall, named in honor of Bishop Francis Kelly, the third bishop of Winona and the bishop who began the process of transferring Saint Mary's College to the