The Pontifical College Josephinum is a private Roman Catholic liberal arts college and graduate school of theology in Worthington, Ohio a suburb of Columbus. It was founded by Monsignor Joseph Jessing in 1888 and is the only papal college in North America. The seminary prepares its students to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1892, Pope Leo XIII made Pontifical College Josephinum the only pontifical seminary outside of Italy which linked it directly to the Vatican. From that time to the present, the institution has been under the direction of the Congregation for Catholic Education, with the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States as its Chancellor.
Josephinum's tower is nearly 200 feet tall and was originally constructed to hide a 22,000 gallon water tank use by the campus.
Today, the Pontifical College Josephinum prepares men for service to the Church in dioceses both large and small, within the United States and around the world. Since its founding in 1888, more than 1,900 priests have received their training at the Josephinum. Ordained alumni are active in nearly all of the 50 states in the United States and in more than 20 foreign countries.
