Alemany May Move to Seminary : Mission Hills: Catholic archdiocese is said to be planning to transfer the high school to Our Lady Queen of Angels site.

Instead of rebuilding quake-damaged Alemany High School, the Catholic archdiocese plans to simply move it--lock, stock and students--to the campus now used by Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary, a high school-level academy for the training of priests that is scheduled to close anyway, Catholic sources say.

Father Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the archdiocese, said this week that he cannot confirm or deny that such a move is in the works. However, knowledgeable sources say the move was officially announced to the 1,600 Alemany students last week and also to seminarians in Camarillo.

What remains unclear is whether this is a temporary move for Alemany or permanent.

The move-in in September will complete an ongoing process for Alemany students. Shortly after the Jan. 17 Northridge quake rendered a dozen buildings at Alemany unsafe to occupy, some classes were moved to the campus at Our Lady Queen of Angels, using temporary modules and dormitories converted to classrooms.

Archdiocesan officials said earlier that they would rebuild the Alemany campus, on Rinaldi Street. But they have shelved those plans, at least for the time being, after deciding to move the school to the mission-style seminary next to the San Fernando Mission, the sources said.

The seminary was already scheduled to close May 31 because of changes in the way in which young men become priests.

The high school-level seminary was meant to be the first step in training boys who would then enter college- and graduate-level seminaries to complete their education for the priesthood.

Its enrollment, which hit 362 in 1965, had dwindled to less than 100 by the late 1970s and was still only 155 in October. The archdiocese decided to close it after a study showed that no more than 5% of the seminary’s incoming students would actually complete the 12 years of training for the priesthood.

Given the expense of operating the seminary for such a small benefit, church officials plan to recruit priesthood candidates through other methods.

“The seminary site is beautiful,” said Robert DePasquale of Granada Hills, who with his wife, Pat, has two sons attending Alemany and another who just graduated.

“It’s nice that they were able to use (the buildings) for something,” Pat DePasquale said.

The seminary has a large swimming pool but no gymnasium. “I was told they are going to build a gym,” Robert DePasquale said.

The DePasquales said their sons heard the announcement early last week from Alemany administrators. Students began their Easter vacation April 13 and will not return to classes until Monday.

Father Robert Milbauer, the high school’s principal, could not be reached for comment.

Hung Nguyen, a student at the graduate-level St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo and a part-time assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Northridge, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony informed seminarians of the decision in an appearance at the Camarillo campus a few weeks ago.

Nguyen expressed sorrow that chances for resuscitating the high school seminary, where he once was a student, are evaporating now that the grounds are being turned over to Alemany. Now in his next-to-last year before ordination, Nguyen said the story should be told of the high school seminary’s role in providing priests for the archdiocese, including Mahony, a 1954 graduate.