Beginnings in Europe

The Society of the Divine Word was founded in Steyl, Holland in 1875 by Blessed Arnold Janssen, a German diocesan priest. Janssen's dream was to create a missionary training center and, within four years, the first Divine Word Missionaries were sent to China. Twenty years later, Janssen dispatched Brother Wendelin Meyer, (uncle of Albert Cardinal Meyer, former Archbishop of Chicago), to the United States. He arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895, assigned to seek financial support for the missions through sales of Divine Word publications.

First Catholic Foreign Mission Seminary in the United States

Within a year, Brother Homobonus Stiller was sent to the United States to help Bro. Wendelin. Together, the two missionaries continued to win friends for the Society in New Jersey and New York.

In 1897, more missionaries joined them, and eventually they settled in Shermerville, Illinois, now known as Northbrook, about 35 miles north of downtown Chicago.

In 1899, the Society of the Divine Word purchased the farm land which became Techny. From 1901 to 1912, the Society operated a technical school for boys, from which the name "Techny" is derived. In 1909, encouraged by successful recruiting efforts, the society opened St. Mary's Mission Seminary at Techny--the first seminary established in the United States primarily to train men for the foreign missions.

First Seminary To Serve African Americans

In 1905, at Arnold Janssen's urging, the Society of the Divine Word began its pioneering ministry among African Americans in the United States. The first seminary to train African Americans for the Priesthood opened in Greenville, Mississippi in 1920. By 1923 the Society had moved the Seminary to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. It was called St. Augustine Seminary and it gave African American men the opportunity to become Priests and Brothers. Today, about 40 percent of the African American clergy ordained in the United States have been trained by the Society of the Divine Word, including nine SVD bishops. The first four African American Priests were ordained at the Seminary in 1934. The first two African American Brothers professed vows there in 1937.

Contemporary SVD Mission in North America

The Society's mission among African Americans in the United States and the Caribbean includes 48 parishes. The Society also ministers among the Vietnamese, who are part of our new "immigrant" Church, and among Hispanics, who comprise the most rapidly growing catholic population in the U.S. This ministry includes the Society's Mission Verbita in the Chicago area and parishes in New Jersey and California.

Missionary recruitment, education and formation are among the Society"s top priorities in North America. Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa is the only four-year Catholic seminary college in the U.S. which is devoted exclusively to educating young men for missionary work. Young men preparing for temporary vows in the Society come to the Novitiate at Techny for a year of study and reflection. After temporary vows, the students go on either to Wendelin House of Brother Formation in Washington, D.C., or to Divine Word Theologate and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

In addition to missionary education and formation, pastoral work and teaching, Divine Word Missionaries in the United States foster communications projects among minorities through radio, television and print. In New Orleans, the Media Production Center produces videos and IN A WORD, a magazine on the African American experience of being Catholic. WORDNET, headquartered in Riverside, California seeks to serve minorities and the disadvantaged through radio, television and print.

The Society's geographic areas of administration, education and mission in the U.S. are: the Chicago Province, (stretching from Iowa to New Jersey and from Montreal to the Caribbean); the Southern Province, (with missions in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas); and, the Western Province, (including the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco areas). Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, site of the second seminary founded by the Society of the Divine Word in the United States, is the headquarters of the SVD Southern Province. St. Augustine Seminary was founded there in 1923. Today, it is the location for St. Augustine Retreat Center and the Retirement Residence for SVD Priests and Brothers of the Southern Province. Visitors are welcome all the time to St. Augustine Chapel, the Grotto and the Retreat Center.

Our missionary work in the southern United States includes 24 parishes (churches), hospital chaplancies, communications, Hispanic outreach, and teaching ministries. Preaching Missions and Revivals are also part of our work. In addition to our missionary work in the south, Divine Word Missionaries work in 65 countries throughout the world. Please know that we need your prayers and generosity as we continue our missionary work.