By BRIAN D. WALLACE

SJFS, 1989 - Formerly the Saint Joseph Convent, the residence on Daniels Farms Road in Trumbull became the first home of the Saint John Fisher Seminary. The site is now the bishop’s residence.

The Saint John Fisher Seminary Residence celebrates its 20^th anniversary next month as one of the most important yet somewhat lesser-known programs of the Diocese of Bridgeport. Nearly one-third of the active priests in Fairfield County – 61 by exact count – discerned their vocation at Saint John Fisher on their way to major seminary and ordination.

“We cannot underestimate the importance of Saint John Fisher in the vocations program of our diocese,” says Bishop William E. Lori, who has expanded the institution begun in 1989 by his predecessor, now-Cardinal Edward M. Egan. “It is truly a house of discernment, a place set apart from the world where men can discover Christ, listen more intently to His call, and live the life of a priest. Its first two decades have been tremendously rewarding for our diocese, judging by the number of ‘Fishermen’ who became fine, hard-working priests.”
Bishop Lori adds that the future of Saint John Fisher, which is fully-funded by the Living Our Faith Annual Bishop’s Appeal, is very bright indeed. “We have 12 men in residence now, and we expect many more, God willing, in the fall,” he says.

EARLY DAYS
When then-Bishop Egan announced the establishment of the Saint John Fisher Seminary Residence on June 22, 1989 (the feast day of the English bishop and martyr), he predicted, “In this house of prayer and study I am confident that many young men will hear and respond to the call of the Lord to serve Him and His Church as diocesan priests.”
Judging from diocesan history, the new bishop (Bishop Egan was in office just six months when he made his announcement) had little cause for such confidence. His predecessor, Bishop Walter W. Curtis, made a stab at a seminary program when he opened Christ the King Preparatory Seminary, a high school program in Southport, in 1962 (also less than one year after becoming bishop). The school closed in 1970, having produced only a handful of priests.

While Bishop Curtis’ venture opened when the Catholic Church was at its zenith and there was no lack of candidates for the priesthood, Bishop Egan’s idea was proposed as dioceses faced a real crisis in vocations in the 1980s. He chose as his first seminary rector Father Stephen M. DiGiovanni, at the time 12 years’ ordained with experience as a parish priest and Church historian. At 38 years old, he was not much older than some of first seminarians.

“I always sort of wondered why the bishop asked me,” recalls the now-Msgr. DiGiovan-ni, presently pastor of Saint John the Evangelist Parish in Stamford. “I wasn’t worried about the age difference. These young men had put their lives in our hands and they wanted to learn from priests who set a good example and understood the priesthood.”

THE FIRST CLASS
The Fisher Seminary opened its doors in September 1989 in a former convent on Daniels Farm Road in Trumbull (the site of Bishop Lori’s residence today). To the surprise and delight of both bishop and rector, 13 men signed on for the first semester.

“We realized that a vocation was a hard sell for the men given the cultural climate,” says Msgr. DiGiovanni. “Many of them had been struggling with the sense of a vocation for a few years but they put it off for whatever reason.”

From the beginning, Saint John Fisher gave men an opportunity to explore their vocation locally without uprooting their lives and traveling to a major seminary in this country or abroad.

“The men didn’t have to take big loans for the seminary to pursue something they weren’t sure of,” Msgr. DiGiovanni explains. “The residence gave them a place to come to for a year where they lived prayerful, studious, and celibate lives, and take the first step toward priesthood. For most, in a few months, it was very clear if they had a vocation to the priesthood.”

After years of study in the United States and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Msgr. DiGiovanni had a first-hand understanding of seminary life, and he knew that there was one key ingredient to keeping the men happy.

“Good food!” he says with a smile. “I remembered always being hungry in the seminary, and the food we had was not very good because it was institutional preparation for large groups. At Fisher, we had a great cook, Linda Colon, and the refrigerator and shelves were well stocked. Linda acted as surrogate mother to the guys and prepared phenomenal, healthy, fresh food – and no junk food, which is demoralizing.”

ROCKY START
Father Michael Dunn, parochial vicar at Saint Theresa Parish in Trumbull, was one of the first seminarians. While he remembers the food fondly, he admits he got off to somewhat of a rocky start. Not only was he wrestling with uncertainty about his own vocation, but he was also taken back by the condition of the building.

“When we got there, the building was not nearly completed. It was a mess. Many of our first hours were spent cleaning things, building book shelves, and doing a lot of painting,” says Father Dunn, a native of Danbury who came to Saint John Fisher after graduating from Seton Hall University and working for a time as a teen counselor.

JOURNEY
“After about three weeks at Saint John Fisher, I had my bags packed and was prepared to leave,” he relates. “I told Father DiGiovanni that I didn’t think I fit in. I felt the other men were more spiritual and had more background, but he encouraged me to journey a little farther before making a decision. It was good advice.

“It was a great bunch of guys. We worked and prayed together and really started to bond,” continues Father Dunn, who fondly recalls an impromptu snowball fight that brought the men out at midnight after an unexpected snowstorm. Before they knew it, the rector had joined in.

That first semester, 13 men were living in the unfinished residence, with one man camping out in the front office for a while until his room was prepared. Msgr. James Cuneo, now adjutant judicial vicar of the Diocesan Tribunal, served as first spiritual director of the residence and lived in a tiny room that barely had space for a desk.

The seminarians lived like monks in tiny rooms hardly large enough to hold a bed. Sinks and toilets were at the end of the hall. But in the long run, none of that mattered, because the men were focused on a goal and more than willing to make sacrifices to prepare for the priesthood.

CROWDED
“Being at Saint John Fisher was the happiest time of my entire seminary career,” says Father Cyprian P. LaPastina, pastor of Saint Gabriel Parish in Stamford. He remembers the place as overcrowded but “a very prayerful house full of good company.”

Most importantly, he says, Msgr. DiGiovanni “was a great example of what being a priest was all about.” The young rector was a taskmaster who set the rules, enforced the discipline, and worked to establish a sense of spirituality and fun in the daily lives of the men.

“He never treated us like students or kids,” Father LaPastina recalls. “I was 27 at the time, about the average age of the guys in residence. Most of us came from having had jobs and our own apartments. He could be tough, but no tougher than the bosses we worked for in our jobs, and he always treated us with respect.”

Each day began with Mass and breakfast before the seminarians went off to class at local universities or in the residence itself. Each day ended with a communal meal and a Mass or evening prayer service.

Father LaPastina also remembers doing a lot of work. “Each of us had a job, which we performed daily after Mass and breakfast,” he says, noting that the “work crews” cleaned the place from top to bottom for an hour each morning.

REGIMEN
“The regimen was very important,” remembers Richard Preli, who joined Saint John Fisher in its second semester. “The prayer life, the house rules, and even the chores encouraged a camaraderie and a solidarity among the guys. We all shared the same goal. We were discerning, together. Some of the most precious moments were gathering for Mass and praying the Divine Office together.”

Preli is one of many Fisher alumni who did not become a priest. He left Saint John Fisher after one semester to explore a calling to the religious life. Today, he is a project manager for a construction company, living and working in Bermuda. But he retains fond memories of his months in Trumbull.

“Even though I am not a priest, the experience helped me tremendously in my faith, in who I am today and how I practice my faith,” Preli says. “We had a solid leader in Msgr. DiGiovanni. We were inspired by his example, his knowledge of the faith, and his practice of the faith. Here was a man who could have done anything in life and been very successful, yet he chose the priesthood. He answered that call. It was awe-inspiring to us that a high-caliber person opted to do this and was so happy and fulfilled.”

FISHER WORKS
Although Msgr. DiGiovanni hated to lose any men, he says the program worked effectively to show men whether or not they had a priestly vocation, and nurtured the spirituality of those who eventually came to realize that marriage was their true vocation.

“It’s all about finding what God wants in our lives,” he says. “We hope that all the men would become priests, but if they went on to get married, the Church benefited either way because they left as well-formed laymen.

Within five years, the Fisher Residence was bursting at the seams, with more than 30 seminarians in the program. It had outgrown its Trumbull home, and a new location was soon found in another former convent, beside Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford. Msgr. DiGiovanni oversaw another extensive renovation, adding a special gift to the community: a Perpetual Adoration Chapel where the faithful could come, night and day, to pray for the vocations of the seminarians.

In 1997, Msgr. DiGiovanni passed the rector’s baton to Msgr. Kevin Royal, who was succeeded in 2006 by the late Father Joseph Linck. Last year, Father Samuel V. Scott became the first former pastor to become rector. The mission of the Fisher Residence endures into its third decade.

“It was a thrill to be involved in influencing the lives of young men who wanted to be priests, to have taught them, and to have had an influence on the way they run parishes and work for the salvation of souls,” Msgr. DiGiovanni concludes. “Those were great days for me.”

(For more information on the Saint John Fisher Seminary Residence and the vocations program of the Diocese of Bridgeport, call 203-416-1513.)

This article first appeared in the May 2009 Issue of the Fairfield County Catholic. Click HERE to view the above article in High Resolution PDF Format.