DETROIT — Msgr. Todd Lajiness was formally installed as the 13th rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary during a Mass on Sept. 9, the day before his predecessor was ordained a bishop 284 miles away in Steubenville, Ohio.

The installation Mass for Msgr. Lajiness was celebrated in the seminary’s chapel by Archbishop Allen Vigneron.

In addition to lay undergraduate and graduate programs, Sacred Heart Major Seminary forms and educates future priests for the Archdiocese of Detroit and the dioceses of Lansing; Kalamazoo; Marquette; Saginaw; Gary, Ind.; Winona, Minn.; Fargo and Bismarck, S.D.; and Madison, Wis. The Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas, Milles Christi and the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity also send seminarians to Detroit.

Archbishop Vigneron appointed Msgr. Lajiness to succeed then-Msgr. Jeffrey Monforton on Feb. 13. Msgr. Lajiness, the former dean of studies for the seminary, assumed his new role on May 5.

The new rector has cited as his goals the strengthening of leadership qualities among future priests and the growth of the seminary’s program in the New Evangelization, which will be the theme of the worldwide Synod of Bishops in Rome this year and a local synod to be held in the Archdiocese of Detroit in the coming year or two. Archbishop Vigneron has not yet announced a date for the latter.

Msgr. Lajiness also said the seminary will study the problem of some priests leaving ministry just a few years after being ordained. Overall, however, enrollment at the institution on Chicago and Linwood in Detroit is on the rise, with 119 seminarians enrolled last year.

“The bottom line is to do our very best to prepare priests who are healthy and have a really deep relationship with Christ, and who really relate effectively with people,” Msgr. Lajiness told The Michigan Catholic for a story in May.

Msgr. Lajiness, 44, was ordained a priest in 1995, and served for five years as former archbishop Cardinal Edmund Szoka’s priest secretary.