By Toni Pallatto - Florida Catholic
Photographer: JUAN BELTRAN | FC
Entrance to St. John Vianney College Seminary, with St. Raphael Chapel in the background.
MIAMI | In its 60th anniversary year, St. John Vianney College Seminary has become a graduate school.
This past June, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools approved the seminary’s petition to offer fully-accredited, online philosophy degree programs at the bachelor’s and master’s levels.
“We are the only freestanding bilingual college seminary in the country,” said Father Ferdinand Santos, the seminary’s rector. “With these online degree programs, we offer the only fully-accredited online degrees in philosophy, leading the way as an instrument of evangelization.”
The online programs were conceived as a way of responding to Pope Francis’ challenge for Christians to be “missionary disciples” who go out into the “existential peripheries” of the current age. The goal is to help them engage society in a way that offers the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to those grappling with the complex issues of our time.
“The Catholic faith provides such a rich philosophical tradition of being able to be open to the fullness of truth in all its manifestations,” said Father Santos. “We strive to embrace truth in a way that synthesizes all that is true, good and noble while also pushing this tradition forward to bring about a genuine synthesis of the old and the new.”
The online programs are being offered primarily to college-level and pre-theology houses of formation that are looking for solid coursework in authentic Catholic philosophy from a fully-accredited institution. Having the courses online allows students greater flexibility and control over their schedules.
“We are also offering these programs to religious and lay students who wish to pursue undergraduate or graduate degrees in philosophy,” Father Santos said. “We, as a Catholic seminary, provide a differential from the study of philosophy in a regular college or university setting. A greater emphasis is placed not only on the narrative character of philosophy — the idea that philosophy has a ‘story’ that unfolds and mirrors the human person’s ongoing search for meaning — but on the character of philosophical study as a true and indispensable aid to the study of theology.”
For more information on how to enroll, email IanCarlo Arispe at [email protected], or call 305-223-4561.
