Pontifical North American College

Based on Wikipedia: Pontifical North American College

America's Seminary in the Heart of Rome

There's a hill in Rome where American seminarians wake up each morning to a view of Saint Peter's Basilica. The Janiculum Hill rises on the western edge of the city, and from its slopes, these future priests can look down upon the Vatican itself—a daily reminder of what they're preparing to serve.

This is the Pontifical North American College, known simply as the NAC among Catholic circles. It's been shaping American priests since 1859, making it one of the oldest American institutions in Rome. But the story of how it came to exist reveals something fascinating about the early struggles of Catholicism in the United States.

A Church in Crisis

In the 1850s, the Catholic Church in America faced a peculiar problem. Waves of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants were flooding into the country, bringing their Catholic faith with them. But they arrived in a nation deeply suspicious of their religion.

Anti-Catholic sentiment wasn't just social awkwardness at dinner parties. It was violent. Convents were burned. Priests were attacked. The Know-Nothing political party built its entire platform on opposing Catholic immigration. Protestant evangelical movements actively targeted Catholic immigrants, hoping to convert them away from Rome.

Cardinal Gaetano Bedini saw this crisis firsthand. As the secretary general of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith—essentially the Vatican's office for spreading Catholicism around the world—he understood the numbers. Millions of Catholics were arriving in America, but there weren't nearly enough priests to serve them. And here's where it got complicated: importing European priests only made things worse.

Why? Because American nativists already accused Catholics of divided loyalties, of taking orders from a foreign pope. Bringing in foreign-born priests confirmed every suspicion. The Church needed American priests—men who spoke with American accents, understood American culture, and couldn't be painted as agents of foreign influence.

The Roman Solution

Bedini's answer was counterintuitive. To create American priests, he would send American men to Rome.

Think about it. These seminarians would receive the finest theological education the Church could offer, studying at the very heart of Catholicism. They'd walk the same streets as the early martyrs, pray in churches that predated their nation by fifteen centuries, and build relationships with future Church leaders from around the world. Then they'd return home, thoroughly Roman in their formation but thoroughly American in their identity.

Not everyone loved the idea. Some American bishops resented the implication that they couldn't train their own priests. Officials in the Roman Curia—the Vatican's bureaucracy—had their own objections. But Bedini had a powerful ally: Pope Pius IX himself.

Pius IX ordered the plan implemented. In 1859, the North American College opened its doors in a former convent near the Trevi Fountain. The pope personally visited the new seminary in January 1860, blessing an institution that would spend the next century and a half shaping American Catholicism.

From Convent to Campus

That original building still exists. It's called the Casa Santa Maria now, and it serves a different purpose—housing priests who come to Rome for graduate studies rather than seminarians in initial formation. But for decades, it was the only home the NAC knew.

The college grew steadily. In 1884, Pope Leo XIII elevated it to pontifical status, a recognition that it operated under the direct authority of the Holy See rather than any single diocese. Two years later, the Maryland state legislature incorporated it as a nonprofit under American law—a legal technicality that matters because it means donations to the NAC are tax-deductible for American Catholics.

By the 1920s, the old convent was bursting at the seams. American vocations were rising. Bishops wanted to send more men to Rome. Something had to change.

In 1929, the American bishops made their move. They purchased the Villa Gabrielli, an estate on the Janiculum Hill with sweeping views of the Vatican. The plan was to eventually build a proper campus there, with dormitories and classrooms worthy of the growing American presence in Rome.

Then came the war.

Closing and Rebirth

World War II forced the NAC to close in 1940. The seminarians went home. The buildings sat empty. Italy became a battlefield, and Rome—though declared an open city—was no place for young Americans preparing for ordination.

But the Church thinks in centuries, not years. In 1948, with Europe still digging out from the rubble, the Holy See announced the NAC would reopen. That August, fifty American seminarians made the voyage to Italy, returning to the Casa Santa Maria to resume their studies.

The post-war years transformed the college. American Catholicism was booming. The GI Bill sent millions of young men to college, and many of them were Catholic. The priesthood seemed like a noble calling, a respected profession, a way to serve. Vocations surged.

The old convent couldn't handle the demand. In 1953, Pope Pius XII dedicated a brand-new seminary on the Janiculum Hill property that the bishops had purchased before the war. The Casa Santa Maria became a residence for priests pursuing advanced degrees, while the new hilltop campus became the primary home for seminarians.

How the NAC Works Today

The modern NAC operates as four distinct departments, each serving different populations of American Catholic clergy.

The seminary itself is the heart of the operation. Approximately 250 men study there, preparing for ordination. They come from dioceses across the United States, nominated by their bishops and approved by the rector. Their academic formation happens at various pontifical universities throughout Rome—places like the Gregorian University or the Angelicum—while the NAC handles their spiritual, human, and pastoral formation.

The Casa Santa Maria houses around 75 priests at any given time. These are ordained men, already serving in parishes or other ministries back home, who've been sent to Rome for graduate studies. They might be earning a doctorate in canon law or specializing in bioethics or studying Church history. The Casa gives them a community of fellow American priests and a base from which to pursue their academic work.

The Institute for Continuing Theological Education serves a different need entirely. Located in the Casa O'Toole—an 18th-century residence on the Janiculum property that was renovated in 2009 and 2010—it offers continuing formation programs for priests who've been ordained ten years or more. Think of it as professional development for veteran clergy, an opportunity to step back from parish life and deepen their theological understanding.

Finally, there's the Bishops' Office for U.S. Visitors to the Vatican. This is the least known but practically important department. It serves Americans in Rome—pilgrims, students, clergy—helping them navigate the Vatican and coordinate with Church officials. If an American bishop needs to meet with someone in the Curia, this office helps make it happen.

Governance and Politics

The NAC exists in a fascinating jurisdictional space. It's administered by the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, but that congregation delegates its operation to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which acts through a board of governors composed of one bishop from each of the fifteen USCCB regions.

This arrangement sounds bureaucratic, but it reflects something important. The NAC belongs to American Catholics, funded by their donations and serving their dioceses. But it operates in Rome, under the ultimate authority of the Holy See. Sometimes those two power centers don't see eye to eye.

In 2022, this tension became public. The board of governors and the Congregation for the Clergy deadlocked for months over who should become the new rector. It was reportedly part of a wider conflict between the Vatican and the American bishops' conference. Eventually, the Congregation bypassed the board entirely, consulting directly with the metropolitan archbishops in the United States to break the impasse. Monsignor Thomas Powers emerged as the compromise choice.

Scandal and Accountability

No institution that has existed for over 160 years escapes controversy, and the NAC is no exception.

In 2021, a former seminarian named Anthony Gorgia filed a lawsuit that made headlines. He claimed the NAC and its leadership, along with the Archdiocese of New York, had pressured him to resign in 2019 because he had witnessed sexual activity at the seminary involving a bishop and several priests.

The NAC denied the allegations vigorously, stating it had never been informed of any misconduct. In January 2022, a New York judge dismissed the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds—the court simply didn't have authority over an institution and employees based in Rome. The dismissal didn't address the underlying claims, leaving questions unanswered.

The case illustrates a broader challenge the Catholic Church has faced for decades: how to handle allegations of misconduct in institutions that span multiple countries and legal jurisdictions. A seminarian in Rome who witnesses something troubling has limited options. Where does he report it? To American bishops? To Vatican officials? To Italian authorities? Each path has its own complications.

Life at the NAC

Not everything at the NAC is weighty theology and institutional politics. Seminarians are young men, and young men play sports.

Since 2007, the college has competed in the Clericus Cup, an annual soccer tournament among Roman ecclesiastical institutions. Imagine it: seminarians from the NAC squaring off against students from the Scots College, the German College, the Pontifical Urbaniana University. The NAC team, nicknamed the North American Martyrs—a reference to the Jesuit missionaries killed in 17th-century North America—has won championships in 2012, 2013, and 2018, with runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2010.

These competitions serve a real purpose beyond recreation. They build relationships across national boundaries. The Australian seminarian you play against today might be a bishop you work with in thirty years. The friendships formed on Roman soccer pitches echo through decades of Church life.

Notable Visitors

The NAC has welcomed an extraordinary parade of visitors over the years. Four popes have walked its halls. Two American presidents—Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy—have visited. Kennedy's visit carried particular significance; he was the first Catholic president, proof that the anti-Catholic sentiment of the 1850s had finally faded enough for a Catholic to reach the White House.

Perhaps the most surprising visitor was Billy Graham, the evangelical Protestant preacher. Graham built his career bringing millions of Americans to Protestant Christianity, yet he visited this Catholic seminary in Rome. It speaks to the ecumenical relationships that developed in the 20th century, the warming between Christian traditions that would have been unthinkable in Cardinal Bedini's day.

The Continuing Mission

The pandemic forced the NAC to send all its seminarians home in March 2020, echoing the wartime closure eighty years earlier. But like before, the closure was temporary. The mission continues.

Every year, young American men arrive in Rome to study for the priesthood. They learn theology in Latin. They serve at papal Masses in Saint Peter's. They absorb the universal Church in a way that seminarians studying in Chicago or Boston or Los Angeles simply cannot. And then they go home to serve in parishes across America, bringing a Roman formation to Main Street congregations.

Cardinal Bedini's vision has proven remarkably durable. He wanted American priests formed at the heart of the Church, and that's exactly what the NAC has produced for over 160 years. The anti-Catholic sentiment that prompted its founding has largely faded, but the value of Roman formation endures. When an American priest has walked the streets of Rome, prayed in the ancient basilicas, and studied alongside seminarians from six continents, he brings something unique to his ministry.

The view from the Janiculum Hill hasn't changed. Saint Peter's dome still rises in the distance. And every morning, American seminarians wake up to that view, preparing to serve a Church that spans the globe from their temporary home in the Eternal City.