About two miles north of central Worthington, on a parklike campus that feels removed from the suburban sprawl around it, stands the Pontifical College Josephinum — the only pontifical seminary outside of Italy and one of the more unexpected institutions in Ohio. Founded in 1888 by Bohemian-born Father Joseph Jessing to train priests for German-speaking immigrant communities, it received its pontifical status from Pope Leo XIII in 1892 and has reported directly to Rome ever since.
The campus buildings, mostly in Romanesque Revival style, are handsome and set in well-maintained grounds. The college's library holds an impressive collection of theological works, and the chapel is worth seeing if you can get inside. The campus is not a tourist destination in the usual sense — it is a functioning seminary — but visitors are generally tolerated on the grounds, and the chapel is sometimes open. If you are interested in Catholic institutional history or just the strangeness of finding a direct Vatican outpost in a Columbus suburb, it rewards a slow drive or walk through.