Dates on the base of the statue read 1836-1899.
Below that it reads:
SI DEUS PRO NOBIS
QUIS CONTRANOS
The following information on Jessing and the founding of the Josephinum comes from the college's history webpage (
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In 1867, Joseph Jessing, a thirty-year-old German war veteran, left his home in Münster, Westphalia, to pursue his lifelong vocation to the Roman Catholic priesthood. Unbeknownst to him at the time, this was the first of many steps Jessing would take toward the founding of the Pontifical College Josephinum.
As a boy, Jessing labored in a print shop to provide for his mother and two siblings, devoting what little spare time he had to reading and study. His father had died when Jessing was only four years old. Jessing enlisted in the Prussian army at the age of nineteen and proved himself a successful soldier, earning several promotions and military honors. Despite these achievements, Jessing's dream of the priesthood remained his true ambition. He emigrated to the United States in 1867 and began his studies at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1868. Reverend Joseph Jessing was ordained by the first bishop of Columbus on July 16, 1870, and was assigned to Sacred Heart Church in Pomeroy, Ohio.
Soon after arriving at Sacred Heart, Jessing became deeply concerned about the orphan boys in his parish. With the assistance of the Brothers of Saint Francis, he provided them with shelter, food, and schooling, thus establishing Saint Joseph Orphanage. The orphanage was funded primarily through Jessing's German newspaper, the Ohio (later called Ohio Waisenfreund, meaning Ohio Orphan's Friend), which he himself wrote and published.
In August of 1877, Jessing relocated the orphanage to downtown Columbus, Ohio, opting for a location closer to the railroad.
When four older boys expressed a desire to study for the priesthood, Jessing advertised in his paper that he would sponsor two boys who wished to become priests but who lacked the financial means to do so.
Jessing accepted twenty-three of the more than forty applicants who replied, and the first academic classes began on September 1, 1888.
As those first students progressed through the seminary program, the institution initially provided six years of primary education ("minor seminary," four years of high school and two years of college/pre-theology) and six years of secondary seminary education ("major seminary," another two years of college/pre-theology and four years of theology/ seminary). The first class of six seminarians was ordained to the priesthood in June 1899.
In 1931, the Josephinum moved to its present location eleven miles north of downtown Columbus on a landmark one-hundred-acre campus. The academic structure changed over time during the 1940s and 1950s from the "six-six" format to four years of high school, four years of college, and four years of theology/seminary (though the distinctions were gradual and unclear). The first official College commencement occurred in June 1953; the College and Recreation buildings were dedicated in 1958; and the high school closed in 1967.
To ensure that the Josephinum would continue after his death, Jessing asked that it be placed under the protection of the Holy See. Pope Leo XIII granted the request in 1892, thus making the Pontifical College Josephinum the only pontifical seminary outside of Italy. From that time to the present, the institution has been under the direction of the Congregation for Seminaries and Institutes of Study, with the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States as its Chancellor. The seminary is financially independent from both the Holy See and the Diocese of Columbus.
The Josephinum was incorporated under the laws of the State of Ohio in 1894; its Constitution was first approved by Pope Pius XI in 1938 and was most recently revised and approved by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 1996.
For the first few decades of its existence, the Josephinum focused its efforts on educating priests to work with the large population of German immigrants in the United States. After World War I, that focus shifted to preparing priests for dioceses that lack their own seminary. In recent years, the Josephinum has been blessed with a number of candidates from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa who come to the seminary to be educated for service in their native lands.
Since 1899, when six of the original twenty-three students were ordained, more than fifteen hundred priests have received their education at the Pontifical College Josephinum; more than three hundred and fifty graduates of the College of Liberal Arts have completed their studies for ordination at other theologates.