The Oscotian Society brings together generations of those who have been formed at Oscott to support today’s vocations and celebrate a shared spiritual legacy.
The Oscotian Day and AGM was held at Oscott on 20th May 2025 and includes Mass, interesting inputs, a football match between current seminarians and “some of our nimbler members”, strategic planning and more.
Its Chairman Fr Thomas Clarke helps us break down what the Oscotian Society is, why it matters… and how he gets stuck with the bill for the first round of drinks after Mass!
The Oscotian Society was established in 1861 to support the training of seminarians at Oscott College and to safeguard the precious gift of faith in their post-seminary years. This support manifests through annual, monetary grants to the seminary community, and the cultivation of an ‘old boys’ network built on the principles of fraternity, piety and good works.
Over the years, the generosity of our members has funded improvement and preservation of the seminary campus and encouraged seminarians to seize opportunities for pastoral enrichment, including foreign travel and skills training.
Our members, whether they serve in the ministerial priesthood or offer courageous witness in the lay apostolate, share in the unfolding history of Oscott, following in the footsteps of generations of seminarians who came before us. In our diversity of membership, we work to preserve fraternity, rooted in love of the Lord. Individual and collective memories of formation at Oscott, whether long or short, happy or sad, strengthen each of us in our service of God and neighbour and this we rightly celebrate.
In recent years we have worked very hard to ensure a healthy mixture of business and pleasure. The AGM on the Tuesday ensures our accountability to the society membership, bringing everyone up to date with the charitable activity of the previous year and our strategic planning for the future. Rightly, our celebrations culminate with Holy Mass in the chapel (celebrated by this year’s president and former rector, Bishop ✠David Oakley), and like any Catholic gathering worth its name, we round things off with a three course, festal lunch.
We continue to develop our Monday evening provision and this year look forward to a talk from Fr Gerard Skinner of the Archdiocese of Westminster, on the life and times of Venerable Ignatius Spencer, concluding with a social in the seminary common room. The seminarians will be delighted to hear that the bill for the first round of drinks is customarily passed to me for payment! Early arrivals on the Monday may also wish to attend the inaugural football match between the seminary team and some of our nimbler members.
The Society includes everyone from newly ordained priests to men who trained decades ago. What does that intergenerational mix bring to the table?
United in the common denominator of Catholic faith, the society enjoys a diversity of life experience, balancing the wisdom of experience and enthusiasm of youth side by side. Whenever we gather, we celebrate a fraternity rooted in prayer. This fraternity presents precious opportunities to glean best practice from the varied pastoral experiences of brother priests, and the experience of our lay confrères in the secular arena.
When I began my seminary formation in Valladolid, there was a fifty year age gap between myself and my spiritual director. This did not matter in the slightest and our every encounter was happy and joyful, precisely because of our shared love of the Lord and his holy Church. This same joy is alive and well in the Oscotian Society also.
To be realistic, not everyone looks back at their seminary years with undiluted pleasure. If a seminarian is to respond authentically to the great work of priestly formation, it involves a dying to self which at times can be very painful and lonely. That experience is shared with other, equally imperfect men who strive for heavenly beatitude by growing in holiness one day at a time.
Let the opportunity to cultivate fraternity and not the sometimes patchy recollections of our seminary years be the catalyst for our return visit. Let our support for the next generation of men who discern the Lord’s call amidst waves of hostility and indifference be the driving force. And finally, simply to gaze once more upon the face of our heavenly patroness, to whom every single seminarian who has passed through Oscott would consecrate their working day.
Sedes sapientiæ
Ora pro nobis
Interested in joining the Oscotian Society or would want to learn more?: https://www.oscott.org/the-oscotian-society