History and Heritage

In 1854 Mission Santa Barbara was chartered as an apostolic college and continued in that capacity until 1885. From 1869 to 1877, it also functioned as a college for laymen. In 1896, it began a four-year high school seminary program. The high school became a separate institution in 1901, and the college department became an independent institution at San Luis Rey, California, in 1929. Over the years, the college department expanded into a four-year accredited liberal arts college. 

Mission Santa Barbara remained the center for theological studies and continued to operate as a seminary until 1968 when the theological school moved to Berkeley, California as the Franciscan School of Theology, a member school of the Graduate Theological Union, an ecumenical consortium of nine theology schools. 

In academic year 2013-2014 the Franciscan School of Theology moved to Old Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside, California, and entered into a service and curricular affiliation with the University of San Diego, San Diego, California, a private Catholic institution of higher learning.  In 2019 FST moved onto the campus of USD.  FST’s ministerial degree students, both professional and academic, benefit from exposure to USD’s graduate programs in peace and justice, non-profit management, counseling, secondary education, global education, leadership studies, and allied fields.  The Franciscan School of Theology maintains its autonomous corporate and canonical structure, as well as its accreditation.

As our history indicates, once we were a seminary preparing men for service as priests; now we are a seminary and a theology school preparing lay women and men, religious and clergy for shared ministry in the Roman Catholic Church.  Once we were one of a number of Franciscan seminaries in the United States; now we are the only Franciscan seminary/theology school whose mission it is to prepare professional ministers for work in the Church and the society. 

From its earliest history, the Franciscan School of Theology has responded to the changing cultural, social, and religious realities of California and the West. We find inspiration in the long history of the Franciscan tradition around the world and in the Americas. Like the students who journey with us in their preparation for ministry, the history of the Franciscan School of Theology is a story in progress. 

Guided and governed in its educational mission, community life, and degree programs by the Order of Friars Minor’s Ratio Studiorum, “In notitia veritatis proficere” (Rome, GSFS, 2001), the Franciscan School continues to bring the questions of contemporary culture, society, and Church into dialog with the ever-ancient and ever-new Word of the Gospel.

The degree programs accredited by (ATS) and (WSCUC):

• Master of Theological Studies
• Master of Theological Studies – Franciscan Theology (online)
• Master of Divinity
• Master of Arts