History & Tradition

St. Mary Catholic Central

 

St. Mary Catholic Central is a legacy school, born of the merger of two institutions that served as community anchors over the history and development of Monroe, Michigan, and in particular the region's Catholic community. 

The 1986 merger of IHM Sisters' St. Mary Academy and the Archdiocese of Detroit's Monroe Catholic Central was more than 15 years in the making. Discussions that began in 1971 culminated in 1986 with Joint School Board, the IHM Sisters Leadership Council, and Cardinal Szoka's final approval of the merger of SMA and MCC.

The consolidation helped to stabilize enrollment and improve the financial condition for the high school. SMCC, as it is colloquially known, turned the page in the history of Catholic education in Monroe with its move to a co-educational model. The men and women of this era, those who had the vision to see a common future for these two schools and the courage to act during this time, ultimately preserved Catholic education in Monroe for generations to come. 

In 2026, the SMCC community celebrates the 180th anniversary of the founding of St. Mary Academy and the 40th anniversary of the merger of SMA and MCC. In the four decades since its implementation, the merger had accomplished its primary goal, namely to ensure that a Catholic secondary education continue to remain available to the people of Monroe County and surrounding communities. SMCC exists as a strong, vibrant, and vital part of the Catholic Church in southeast Michigan.

In the 40 years since the merger, SMCC had become the preeminent college prep school in region. Today, 100% of its graduates are accepted to college or university. Graduating classes have annually given an average of 9,000 hours of community service and have earned an average of over $8 million in college scholarship offers each year.

Over the last decade and a half, SMCC has undergone a major facility renovation and upgrade that added the Chapel of the Infant Jesus of Prague, a Media and Technology Center, and Founders' Hall which contains the IHM Activities Center, the Brothers of Holy Cross conference room, a Music and Theatre learning space, and an ADA accessible elevator. 

Since 2010, the School has been a trailblazer in secondary education in the Michigan and across the country. SMCC became the first school in Michigan and one of the first in the nation to become a 1:1 iPad school that utilizes 100% digital textbooks and curricular materials. It was only the third school in Michigan to have a random, mandatory, drug testing program for its students when it adopted that program as part of its Student Health and Wellness program. And in response to Gospel call and a core belief that all students, regardless of their educational or economic circumstances, deserve the opportunity to receive a Catholic secondary education, SMCC became the first Catholic high school in Michigan to offer a program for students with moderate to severe learning disabilities when it launched the St. Andre Bessette Open Doors Inclusion program in 2018. 

St. Mary Academy

The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary officially opened St. Mary Academy on January 15, 1846, just over two months after the Congregation itself was founded. Before building a church or a residence, this new order of religious women laid the foundation for what is now a 180 year history of Catholic education in Monroe County. 

The SSIHM traces its roots to the Reverend Louis Florent Gillet and three young women whom he convinced to move to Monroe to help establish a religious institute, “a young ladies academy,” devoted to the education of youth. In November 1845, Theresa Maxis and Ann Shaaf, both from the teaching community of the Sisters of Providence, Baltimore, were joined by Theresa Renauld of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to form a new congregation - the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The courage and sacrifice of these three remarkable women gave birth to an educational institution that would become known, in time, as one of the premier schools for young women in the United States. 

St. Mary Academy was initially located on a leased French ribbon farm at what is now the southwest corner of the intersection of Monroe Street and Elm Avenue. The fledging Order and SMA began to find its footing with the arrival of Monsignor Edward Joos,  as the new Pastor of St. Mary Parish and Director and Superior of the IHM Sisters in 1857. Under the inspired leadership Monsignor Joos, the Order and School grew by leaps and bounds. The number of sisters climbed from 11 to over 1,000 by 1900 and the student count at SMA to over 300 in the same period. 

In the middle of the Civil War, when supplies and labor were incredibly difficult to come by, the ever resourceful and creative IHM's managed to add major additions onto the original Motherhouse including a chapel, a dormitory, and eventually what would become St. Mary's and St. Edward's Halls, completing the first educational quadrangle on the original campus. 

Boarding students from as far away as New York, Nevada, and Montana began to arrive by the 1870s. The growth in enrollment prompted the construction of St. Mary Academy I, the first building used exclusively for education, in 1881 on the banks of the Raisin River, while IHMs were sent all over the Midwest and even to the far corners of the country to found and staff schools.

By 1904, the Academy’s reputation as a strong academic, religious, and cultural school had grown such that a even larger facility was needed.  The groundbreaking for St. Mary Academy II was held on May 7 that year on the site of the present day St. Mary Catholic Central campus. Once complete, it was designed to house both St. Mary Academy as well as "St. Mary College," a post-secondary institution. The Bishop of Detroit requested that the Sisters move the college to the city of Detroit. They obliged and opened what became Marygrove College in Detroit. 

Tragedy struck in June 1929 when a fire broke out and destroyed the “architectural gem” that was SMA II. Remarkably, in a sign of Divine Providence, no lives were lost and a portion of the facility was salvaged.  Nearly 20 years later, this facility would become the home of Monroe Catholic Central, an all boys Catholic high school operated by the Brothers of Holy Cross.In 1932, the third St. Mary Academy building was completed on the site of the current SSIHM Motherhouse.  That fall, 340 young women in grades 1 through 12 began their studies in what has been called one of the largest private construction projects during the “Great Depression.”   St. Mary Academy grew and flourished from the 1940s on through the “baby boom” of the post war generation. Day school and boarding student enrollment grew until SMA reached its highest enrollment in the late 1960s when high school numbers reached over 750. With an ever increasing academic acumen among its religious staff including innovative educational leaders, SMA became a premier educational and finishing school for young women over the course of the middle of the 20th century. 

Monroe Catholic Central

Monroe Catholic Central - In 1941, the pastors of Monroe parishes, St. John, St. Joseph, St. Mary, and St. Michael parishes, along with the pastors of St. Joseph in Erie and St. Patrick in Carleton, responded to their parishioners requests and worked together to establish an all-boys Catholic high school in Monroe. Cardinal Mooney, the Archbishop of Detroit, granted permission for the school to be founded provided a religious order could be found to operate the school.

School organizers contacted Fr. Thomas Steiner, CSC, the Provincial of the Congregation of Holy Cross in South Bend, Indiana and a native of Monroe. Fr. Steiner happily agreed to send members of the Congregation's order of Brothers to staff the school. Three members of the Brothers of Holy Cross arrived in 1944 and comprised the entire staff of the original school: Br. Christian Stinnett, Br. Remigius Bullinger, and Br. Gerontius McCarthy. The brothers lived next door to the school on the second floor of what was then the Maurice Funeral Home.

The Diocese purchased six acres located at 108 West Elm Avenue from the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The site was the home of the second St. Mary Academy building, tragically destroyed by fire in 1929. After renovating what remained of the old SMA II structure into a gymnasium and classroom space, Monroe Catholic Central opened on September 18, 1944 with an enrollment of 56 freshmen.

As enrollment increased, additional Brothers of Holy Cross were hired and created a foundation of educational excellence for young men. By September 1950, an addition was completed including a single floor addition with classrooms, science labs, office space, and a new heating plant. The new building was ready for 236 young men. In 1953, work was completed on a second floor, kitchen, cafeteria, and library. As many as 30 Brothers staffed the school at one point. In 1969, enrollment had increased to its peak of 530 students. This growth necessitated several building campaigns: one in 1965 with a two-story, 12 classroom addition; the second in the summer of 1968 with construction of a new gymnasium and locker rooms.

In less than 30 years, the Brothers of Holy Cross created a school with an extraordinary reputation as a disciplined and challenging environment, as well as, a school with a rich tradition of academic and athletic achievement. This reputation was grounded in the legendary faculty who walked its halls. Names like Gerontius, Davenport, Castignola, Smith, Alessandro, Rottenbucher, Dalton, Lauwers, and Sandersen bring back vivid memories of these larger-than-life figures for MCC alums.

By 1978, the first lay principal was named and at the same time, discussion had begun across the Vicariate exploring the future of Catholic secondary education in Monroe without religious available to staff the schools. The Monroe Catholic Central Board and the Sisters determined the need to share resources, and ultimately moved to create a co-institution between Monroe Catholic Central and St. Mary Academy in 1986.

Cultural, social, and demographic changes brought on during the 1960s within the Catholic Church and the United States began to have an effect on the Catholic education system. Enrollments in Catholic schools began to decline as couples had fewer children and urban sprawl across the country reduced former immigrant population centers. In addition, there was a significant decline in the numbers of professed religious who served as the staff in Catholic schools. Lay educators were quickly becoming the majority. Beyond the cultural impact, the cost of employing lay educators substantially increased the tuition at private educational institutions as the Brothers and Sisters had taken little to no pay for their work. With the cost of living increasing and more primary bread-winners staffing schools, the money required to operate a private and parochial schools quickly increased.

Despite these challenges, the IHM Sisters, the Brothers of Holy Cross, and the School Boards of St. Mary Academy and Monroe Catholic Central were determined in their desire to ensure Catholic secondary education in Monroe County. In the spring of 1978, the two schools agreed to establish a co-institution by sharing classes and resources. In June 1985, Sr. Joyce Durosko, IHM was hired as the Chief Executive Officer by the schools to implement a complete integration plan. Cardinal Edmund Szoka ratified the final merger and the by-laws were drafted by a joint board in 1986. The school was named St. Mary Catholic Central High School, now commonly referred to as SMCC.