Summary: The author details the results of his research into the early history of the famed “Terra Sancta College” - the most prominent physical presence of the Catholic Church in West Jerusalem - its origin in the unrealised vision of a Catholic institution of tertiary education, and the complex ecclesiastical and political factors that led the enterprise in the different direction that it eventually took, until what had become an important institution of secondary education was forced, by war and its aftermath, to cease operation.