The American College of Louvain

The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain (Leuven), Belgium, has been preparing young men for service as priests to the Church in North America for one hundred and fifty years. Conceived in 1857 by Martin J. Spalding, Bishop of Louisville, and by Peter Paul Lefevere, Bishop of Detroit, the seminary in its early decades took advantage of a flourishing of missionary interest and vocations in Europe to provide much needed clergy to the Church in North America. It also provided to American seminarians the opportunity to study philosophy and theology in the famed Catholic University of Louvain in preparation for priestly ministry. It has served as an intellectual, spiritual, and pastoral cradle for many of America's missionaries, pastors, and educators, and continues to do so to the present.