The Dominican noviate building in Winona was a beautiful structure with an amazing landscape surrounding it. Although not as "homey" as Ridgefield, the Winona seminary felt warm, comfortable, and "Catholic", especially since it had been built in the heyday of academic gothic architecture in US Catholic Church.

The Virginia seminary looks like a Central European prison. I have never visited there, but suspect it feels "institutional" like a prison or public high school (Is that redundant?).

While I've not actually visited Virginia, from the pictures, yes, it does look very sterile.  I loved it at Winona.  Perhaps the one thing I would have changed was that (what I considered to be) extremely tacky St. Dominic before the crucifix behind / above the main altar.

What I found interesting there is that in the article it mentions the Dominicans who were buried in the seminary ... and that the seminary vacated in 1969.  I used to visit there, especially on All Souls Day and during the week ... and I noticed  LOT of Dominicans who were deceased in the late 1960s, and many of them were VERY YOUNG.  I kept wondering whether God was sparing them from what was about to come with the NOM or if the revolution upset them so much that it wrecked their health.

https://www.gralon.net/mairies-france/maine-et-loire/association-seminaire-st-louis-marie-grignion-de-montfort-morannes_W491015256.htm

Just posting the "Mission Statement " of +Faure's Seminary in France. Unofficial.

Date of création : 21/01/2017

Date de publication : 04/02/2017

Date of recent modification : 14/02/2023

RNA : W491015256

Type : Leisure and social life

Objet of the Association :
The objective is to ensure the worship of the Roman Catholic Church in the traditional rite, called St. Pius V. This involves the maintenance and training of ministers of worship as well as other people involved in the exercise of worship, support for other associations engaged in this activity, the public and exclusive exercise of this worship in France or abroad, the acquisition, rental, construction or development and maintenance of buildings such as seminaries, places of worship, premises intended for ministers of worship, as well as all other activities directly related to the exercise of worship, but of a strictly accessory nature.

--- ---
Google translation 
Good description below of the Agenda / curriculum for seminarians.

https://apotresdejesusetdemarie.fr/le-seminaire/
...
The great errors of our time: Modernism, liberalism, etc. This spiritual formation will continue throughout the seminary with spiritual lectures given on certain weekday evenings.

Philosophy, "ancilla theologiae" (servant of theology), is then studied for two years by the seminarians.

"All philosophy sings the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who created the things of this world. Philosophy is nothing other than the discovery of the wonders that God has wrought in this world, in the material world, in the spiritual world, and in the heavenly world, for the summit of philosophy is theodicy, the study of God, of all the marvelous attributes of God." Archbishop Lefebvre

In accordance with canon law, the seminarians then begin the study of theology, the study of God and revealed supernatural truths.  This study is done at the school of the “Angelic Doctor”, Saint Thomas Aquinas,...


Sorry, I have no idea what they paid for the building... the point is that they have an ancient institution, not many bells and whistles...it was used as a hospital waaay back!

Let us thank God for His blessings, not how men make waste of them. Our faith is not in the SSPX, but in God who can bring good out of them.

Also, in the 60's was Cuban Crisis.  My parents were so concerned and worried where our family of 7 kids would hid from fall out. We had no basement.  They came to a decision to make the largest bedroom and sand bags for the window, etc.  Afraid for our bodies.  But I don't need to go into it.  Also, we had seminaries that were with ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity.  Good Bye Good Men book.  My  husbands' cousin, went to St. Menarid (sp) Indiana.  He went in and came out B'rth B'ani. He came out like a boomerang.

How old is young?

Why do you think the humanities year is unnecessary? I think it's a step in the right direction. I've even thought the sspx vocations( in the US at any rate) could do with more Humanities. I've found the younger generation of priests quite ignorant. It's not a good look.

100% unnecessary.  Somehow the best and brightest priests the SSPX have did just fine without it for all those years they didn't have that.  Not a few seminarians come through St. Mary's where presumably the High School preparation should be adequate.  Others (like myself) already had college degrees (I double-majored in Latin and Greek, with minors in philosophy, theology, and history).  Prospective seminarians could be given entrance/aptitude exam in case there might be a perceived academic gap, and there could be a Summer session or tow offered to make up for it, or else they could be sent over to St. Mary's for a year to accomplish effectively the same thing.  What I saw was that there may have been a few seminarians who struggled a bit to start, but if by halfway through the first year they weren't starting to get it, then those were likely the ones who would never make it academically anyway.  Whatever perceived "gap" this Humanities Year was supposed to fill could easily and probably much more appropriately filled in other ways.  Finally, there's something to be said for the culture at the seminary not being "watered down" in a sense by young men who may be there because they had not figured out yet what they wanted to do with their lives and were just there largely "discerning" vs. before when by the time you got there, you were already pretty seriously inclined toward the vocation.

Let us thank God for His blessings, not how men make waste of them. Our faith is not in the SSPX, but in God who can bring good out of them.

Maybe ... only because it's too late to do anything about it.  But this type of passivity contributes to the problem, and the faithful who just go along with this attitude are the enables of the SSPX.  Had more lay faithful spoken up against this, perhaps it could have been thwarted, since after all they were in need of lay contributions ... although some of them were "contributing" without their consent or knowledfge as SSPX were siphoning away chapel contributions.

But the thread was about the simple observation that the pretext for the seminary was that there wasn't enough room.  Based on even their latest numbers, that's entirely untrue, as they're almost identical to what we had when I was there ... minus the Humanities Year.  Apart from that, which I hold to be entirely unnecessary, there were other wasy to deal with that need that would not have cost $50,000,000 ... and perhaps not cost anything at all, where that money could have done extraordinarily more good for souls, or, heck, even could have been given to the poor.  For that money you could start a long term care facility or even Catholic hospital where Traditional Catholics who now perhaps end up languishing away in nursing homes in their final years could have lived in an assisted living environment with access to the Sacraments in their critical final years.  Or you could have started some major homeless shelter where you could have encouraged conversion, or build some things in Africa or Asia (for cheap compared to here).  MUCH GOOD could have come from $50,000,000.  Instead, it was spent because Winona was SLIGHTLY LOW ON SPACE?  You couldn't just have built a new building or wing for $2-$3 million TOPS?  Of course they could have.

So, then, what was that about since it obviously was not for pragmatic reasons?

Well, for one, I believe that they were banking on the impending "regularization" with Rome until +Williamson scuttled that, where they expected to be flooded with throngs of seminarians (as if those waiting for regularization did not already have the FFSP option).

Secondly, it's a sign that SSPX considered this state of the Church to be a "new normal" rather than an aberration, where once it had passed, those many thousands of churches and dozens of seminarians that make what SSPX have pale by comparison ... would return to Catholic.  SSPX have given up on the notion that this state is an aberration.

Secondly, it's a sign that SSPX considered this state of the Church to be a "new normal" rather than an aberration, where once it had passed, those many thousands of churches and dozens of seminarians that make what SSPX have pale by comparison ... would return to Catholic.  SSPX have given up on the notion that this state is an aberration.

This point hasn't been brought up before, but needs to.

Anything on the topic of "what the SSPX stood for" and how it's changed now. It's hard to put into words all the things the SSPX was, what it stood for, it's attitudes and outlook on the world, etc.

But this is a KEY piece of the puzzle. They never considered the post-Vatican II takeover to be something we'd have to "deal with" moving forward. No, we always considered that the Church eventually would convert (the Restoration), Vatican 2 would be thrown out, and there would be a return to Tradition. Many corollaries flow from that, including "we don't need to build all the churches/seminaries to hold that flood of new Trads post-Restoration" because yes, there will be PLENTY of seminary buildings and churches to hold all the Trads -- but only once the Crisis is REALLY over. That's the key point.

But you see, if the war in fact continues, if the Crisis is NOT in fact ending, then
A) the neo-SSPX "peace deal" (whether a signed deal, or a de-facto change. We have seen the latter) is more like a SURRENDER. When you lay down your arms while the war continues, that is literally the definition of surrender.
B) The SSPX would have to build its own buildings to accommodate a "bump" of people after the surrender, because it's not like they're magically going to get access to Novus Ordo parish churches, seminaries, etc. -- because the Crisis hasn't ended yet, hello!

This is a very important point.

The SSPX *could* rightfully expect to get access to previously Novus Ordo real estate to help rebuild Tradition -- after the Restoration. But they can't expect such generosity BEFORE said Restoration. They are living in fantasy land now, where the Crisis is over in their hearts, but it's not really over. So if they want to be able to welcome the bump or "flood" of new people, they're going to have to build their own buildings. And, of course, those "new people" are just going to be Indulters who were scared (read: cowards) of the labels the SSPX always endured by being faithful over the past decades. NOT the same kind of people who will return to Tradition after the great Restoration.

Related:
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/tell-me-why-indulters-aren't-cowards-and-or-ignorant/

100% unnecessary.  Somehow the best and brightest priests the SSPX have did just fine without it for all those years they didn't have that.  Not a few seminarians come through St. Mary's where presumably the High School preparation should be adequate.  Others (like myself) already had college degrees (I double-majored in Latin and Greek, with minors in philosophy, theology, and history).  Prospective seminarians could be given entrance/aptitude exam in case there might be a perceived academic gap, and there could be a Summer session or tow offered to make up for it, or else they could be sent over to St. Mary's for a year to accomplish effectively the same thing.  What I saw was that there may have been a few seminarians who struggled a bit to start, but if by halfway through the first year they weren't starting to get it, then those were likely the ones who would never make it academically anyway.  Whatever perceived "gap" this Humanities Year was supposed to fill could easily and probably much more appropriately filled in other ways.  Finally, there's something to be said for the culture at the seminary not being "watered down" in a sense by young men who may be there because they had not figured out yet what they wanted to do with their lives and were just there largely "discerning" vs. before when by the time you got there, you were already pretty seriously inclined toward the vocation.

I think you've slightly missed my point. The best and brightest of the SSPX priests have done well because, well... They are bright. Highly intelligent people operate at a higher level by themselves, they are autodidacts usually. So we don't need to thank the SSPX for these individuals. I think, rather, to assess the quality of SSPX seminaries one should look at a more common denominator- the average priest. 

Funnily enough, there is actually another active thread on this forum right now discussing the Christmas sermon by a young, SSPX priest in which numerous heresies were stated. Seven years of formation at a 50 million dollar seminary wasn't enough apparently.

But I'll leave that one alone because I think where you actually missed my point was the question of knowledge versus intelligence. I have no problem with the intelligence of SSPX priests. Priests are not meant to be geniuses. It is completely fine for them to be as intelligent as ordinary white-collar professionals. What I do find strange, however, is that the younger priests just don't seem to be that knowledgeable. One couldn't really have a normal adult conversation with them. One would have to refrain from bringing up anything too grown-up like the "Roman Question" or the "Encyclopedists." It's disappointing.