college and recreation buildings were dedicated in 1958. The high school closed in 1967 due to a decline in the number of applicants.
For the first few decades of its existence, the seminary focused its work on educating priests to work with the large population of German immigrants in the United States. The Josephinum was incorporated in Ohio in 1894; its constitution was approved by Pope Pius XI in 1938 and was most recently revised and approved by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 1996.
=== Modernization and increasing international focus ===
In the years after World War I, the focus of the seminary shifted away from its original mission of meeting the spiritual needs of German-speaking Catholics to a wider mission of preparing priests for dioceses throughout the United States that lacked their own seminary. With the advent of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the Church took on a more outward-looking and evangelical orientation. It was only natural that seminaries like the Josephinum also become …
