Springfield bishop to celebrate Mass at opening of new Thomas Aquinas College in Northfield

Bishop Rozanski to celebrate

The Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, will celebrate the welcoming Mass for the inaugural year of the New England branch of California-based Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday, Aug. 24, at 8:30 a.m. in the campus chapel of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Northfield. Photo by Anne-Gerard Flynn

NORTHFIELD – The Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, will be the principal celebrant at the welcoming Mass for the inaugural year of Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday morning.

Some 30 freshmen and 30 sophomores have been admitted to the four-year New England branch of the California-based private college whose classical curriculum of study incorporates Catholic values. It is named after a 13th century saint known as a philosopher and theologian — for the upcoming academic year here that begins Monday.

Rozanski will be celebrating the Convocation Mass of the Holy Spirit in the campus chapel of Our Mother of Perpetual Help at 8:30 a.m. and presiding over the matriculation ceremony in the auditorium at 10:30 a.m. on what is the 15th anniversary of his ordination as an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore in 2004. He became bishop of Springfield in 2014.

The Thomas Aquinas College campus is located on what was originally the campus of a girls’ school established in 1879 by the 19th century evangelist Dwight Moody. Moody also founded the Mount Hermon school for boys in Gill in 1881. The two merged in 1971, and consolidated to the Gill campus in 2005.

The shuttered Northfield Mount Hermon property was gifted to Thomas Aquinas by the National Christian Foundation, the country's biggest charitable Christian organization, which also helped the college establish a $5 million matching grant fund for its New England branch.

The foundation had been given the several-hundred-acre property with nearly two dozen buildings and the responsibility of gifting it by Steve Green, president of the arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby.

Green bought the campus for $100,000 in 2009, intending to transfer it to a Christian educational institution with the financial means to accept and maintain it.

He reportedly spent more than $5 million in upgrades to the Northfield campus before turning it over to the foundation after failing to find an economically viable arrangement with an interested party.

Thomas Aquinas College signed for transfer of ownership of the campus from the foundation on May 2, 2017.

In 2018, it received approval from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to operate a second campus there and enrollment is expected to grow between 350 to 400 students at the New England branch that will award a bachelor of arts degree in liberal education.

The school in Santa Paula was founded by Catholic lay people in 1971.

It is devoted to Catholic values and practices and the teaching of analytical, rhetorical and critical thinking skills through the study of theology, philosophy and mathematics.

It was founded after the Second Vatican Council amid concerned that its reforms too secularized Catholic identity and teachings.

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