The Regional Seminary, St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs was founded in 1943 by Most Rev. Finbar Ryan, O.P., then Archbishop of Port-of-Spain, as a diocesan seminary to prepare priests to serve in his archdiocese. Situated on the grounds of the Benedictine Abbey of Mt. St. Benedict in Tunapuna, Trinidad, and administered for almost thirty years by monks of that Abbey, the seminary was adopted in 1970 by the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC) and became the Regional seminary to prepare priests to serve in the various dioceses of that conference.

Since it became regional, the seminary has been staffed by clergy, both diocesan and religious, sisters and lay men and women from the dioceses and religious orders and congregations of the region. The student body comprises not only candidates for the diocesan priesthood or presbyterate, but also candidates for the presbyterate from several clerical orders and congregations serving in the region including the Benedictines (OSB), the Dominicans (OP), the Spiritans (CSSp) and the Sons of Mary Immaculate (FMI), the Carmelite Friars (O.Carm.) and the Jesuits (S.J.), all of which have established houses of formation within easy reach of the seminary.

The academic programme offered at the seminary is designed to meet the canonical requirements of philosophical, theological and pastoral formation of priests of the Roman Catholic Church, according to the principles enunciated in the various (Vatican II and Post-Vatican II) documents of the Church on the formation of priests, in particular the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis of 1985 (hereinafter referred to as RF) and the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis of Pope John Paul II (1992). In addition to candidates for sacred ordination, however, the seminary also admits to its academic programmes religious brothers and sisters and members of the Roman Catholic laity who wish to pursue studies in Theology and related disciplines, in order to be of service to the Church in the region in the field of education or in other areas. Moreover, in keeping with principles of Ecumenism enunciated in the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council and the Revised Ecumenical Directory (1993), the seminary also admits to its academic programmes students from other Christian denominations (especially those denominations which, together with the AEC, form part of the Caribbean Conference of Churches).