Br. Isaac Connolly, dean of students and director of residential life, is on an administrative leave for the 2000-01 academic year. During the year, Br. Isaac will be visiting other college and university residence life programs to study residential learning communities. In Br. Isaac’s absence, his responsibilities are divided among other staff members as noted below.

Fr. Tom Andert is serving as the acting director of residential life in addition to his roles as a first year symposium instructor and a faculty resident for Vincent Court, Seton Apartments, Metton Court, and Edelbrock. Barb Frank, coordinator of residence life, is continuing with her responsibilities with housing assignments and is overseeing residential life marketing. Jim Hardwick, associate dean of students, is continuing with his responsibilities with student conduct, town and gown relations, and Sexton Commons, and is working with CSB Residential Life, human rights, and student issues during Br. Isaac’s leave.

Fr. Timothy Backous, college chaplain/director of campus ministry, is off-campus for the Fall 2000 semester as the leader of the Greco-Roman study program. Aaron Miller, associate director of campus ministry, is coordinating the administrative functions in the office in Fr. Timo’s absence. Fr. Francisco Schulte is providing a Benedictine presence in the office and assisting with the Sunday evening student Eucharist.

http://www.csbsju.edu/Documents/News/community/00-10.pdf

The bells have been ringing for thirty minutes, but it is the sound of a cane rattling through the empty, cavernous church that suggests prayer. It is held by an old man, his stooped body covered in the flowing black habit of a Benedictine monk. He enters from the sacristy, clicking, clacking, up a barely perceptible incline. When he reaches the altar, he pauses and bows, then turns to the left and clicks and clacks his way upward to a lonely seat in the dark wooden choir.

The early morning light is meager, cast from a stained-glass skylight above, through clear windows that run the length of the nave, and from the massive stained glass abstraction that dominates the back of the church at St. John’s Abbey. Other men in habits arrive, bow, and then take seats in the austere straight-backed choir slots. They arrange prayer books and hymnals on the stands in front of them and wait, casting their eyes on the simple wooden crucifix that hangs from the levitating white baldachin. At seven a.m. sharp, a white-haired monk rises from his seat in the choir. “Lord open my lips…”

“And my mouth shall proclaim your praise,” follow the accumulated voices of the Benedictine monks, a soft morning thunder rolling out from the choir over the empty pews.

A single note echoes from the pipe organ. The monks on the choir’s left side sing a verse from Psalms, their voices resonant and nearly undivided. After a pause, the monks on the right side sing a verse. The song continues, shifting back and forth across the choir in a sort of divine stereophonic effect, brothers singing to brothers singing, occasionally joining together on a verse, offering their voices to each other and to God.

When the psalm ends, after the last organ note fades into an ethereal echo, there is a full minute of silence, a contemplation of the prayer just sung, the moment interrupted only by a sneeze, or the occasionally audible grumbling of a stomach. Then the psalms continue, the canticle comes, the responsorial rumbles. Morning Prayer lasts for roughly thirty minutes, depending on the day’s demands, before the monks shuffle silently from the church.

They walk from the sacristy into the cloister, and then turn right into a wide hallway with tile floors and mostly bare walls, passing a lounge where several copies of the day’s Star Tribune have already been pulled apart. The procession continues, still silent, down a flight of stairs, into a darker hallway, past more lounges, past a massive floor-to-ceiling bulletin board covered with sign-up sheets for prayers, readings, haircuts, and kitchen duties, and then through two wooden doors into the abbey dining room. Pastel-colored religious paintings and stained-glass images of foliage hang from the wood-paneled walls. A beautifully carved wood podium stands ceremoniously in the middle of the space; a massive china cabinet dominates a far wall. Eggs, sausages and other dishes are served in chafing dishes on stout wooden tables. It is a very much an old room in style, and yet certain details—the harsh lights, the plastic dishes and trays, the Wheaties and other boxed cereals—suggest that practical updates and conveniences have been integrated. The brothers eat breakfast in silence.

This has more or less been the morning routine since 1856, when a group of Benedictine monks from Pennsylvania arrived in St. Cloud to tend to the German Catholic population. In the 150 years since its establishment, St. John’s Abbey, located on 2,500 acres in Collegeville, ninety miles north of the Twin Cities, has exerted a profound influence on both the Catholic Church and the history of Minnesota. The liturgical reform movement responsible for English and other non-Latin masses received some of its most influential and eloquent support from monks at St. John’s, which is also home to a university and prep school. Minnesota Public Radio was launched within the Abbey’s cloisters (and Garrison Keillor’s first radio performances took place here). The abbey’s Liturgical Press remains one of the most important religious publishing houses in the world, printing journals and books that continue to influence both the scholarly and popular understanding of religion and spirituality. The community has counted among its ranks prominent historians, theologians, liturgists, artists, and philosophers.

Nevertheless, St. John’s Abbey is undergoing the most dramatic changes in its history. For decades, it was the world’s largest Benedictine monastery, with more than four hundred monks living there at its peak in 1963. Today, it has 175, and their average age is sixty-five. The abbey’s traditional role as a provider of parish priests to Minnesota’s churches has become largely obsolete, its monks neither youthful enough nor sufficient in numbers to do the job. The large central Minnesota farm families that once provided the abbey with its most plentiful source of novitiates have been lost to changing rural demographics, leaving the abbey to compete with the temptations of big cities and non-religious careers. Most serious, the sexual-abuse scandals that erupted in America’s parishes also shook St. John’s, altering its culture, its image, and its relationship to Minnesota. Yet even through its darkest hour, the abbey has continued to find novices and retain members, who in turn find relevance in a Minnesota prayer community based on the writings of a sixth-century monk.“We read that monks should not drink wine at all, but since the monks of our day cannot be convinced of this, let us at least agree to drink moderately, and not to the point of excess.

—Rule of St. Benedict 40:6

Born around the year 480 in Norcia, a village in Italy’s Umbria province, the young Benedict rejected the noble Roman lifestyle of his family, retreating instead to a cave for a hermit’s life of prayer. Yet the cave could not shelter him from those impressed by his holy example. Among the visitors were monks from a nearby monastery in need of a new abbot. Benedict tried to refuse the job, warning them that his strict approach to monasticism would not harmonize with theirs. It was an accurate prophecy. As the new abbot, Benedict “watched carefully over the religious spirit of his monks and would not tolerate any of their previous disobedience,” recounts his hagiographer. The monks chafed at this rigidity and, shortly after installing Benedict as their abbot, tried to kill him. With the help of a minor miracle, Benedict survived the attempt on his life. His Rule, a diminutive book of less than a hundred pages in English translation, bears the hard lessons of that experience.

The Benedictine abbot, for example, is a model of managerial flexibility, expected to delegate and consult even though he is “believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery.” Like it or not, he must call together the entire community for counsel when “anything important is to be done in the monastery.” A monk’s most human needs are also recognized explicitly. So, in order to satisfy all appetites, the Rule requires a choice of hot entrees at meals. For comfort’s sake, evening prayers in the summer are interrupted to “give the monks opportunity to care for nature’s needs.” As for the liturgy, Benedict urges “that if anyone finds this distribution of psalms unsatisfactory, he should arrange whatever he judges better.”

Still, for all of its humane flexibility, the Rule has its rules, and they can be specific: Monks are to sleep in dorms lit by a single lantern that burns all night; they are to sleep in their habits, girded with belts (“but they should remove their knives, lest they accidentally cut themselves in their sleep”). Most important, the Rule sets out a particular cycle of prayer—or divine office—requiring eight communal sessions per day. Yet St. John’s, like other American Benedictine monasteries, has consolidated the cycle. According to Father Columba Stewart, a monk at St. John’s and an internationally renowned historian of monasticism, “virtually nobody follows the Rule exactly.” Other departures include private rooms for monks, and the absence of lanterns. Thus, the Benedictines at St. John’s have been accused of worldliness—continuing a tradition nearly as old as the Benedictine order itself. Indeed, the Cistercian order was created to reform the Benedictines, and the Trappists were formed to reform the Cistercians. In both reformed orders, life is far more regimented, prayer is more frequent, and silence is more common.

Timothy Kelly, the seventy-year-old abbot president of the organization representing the twenty-one North American Benedictine monasteries, has no patience for worldly criticisms. “We apply the Rule to what is practical today,” he says, reflecting on his eight years as abbot of St. John’s. “Someone asking, ‘Would Jesus have had a computer?’ is just silly. This whole idea of flight from the world is not found in Benedictine life.”

Instead, what is found is the ordinary and the routine, performed and lived in moderation and community. At St. John’s, prayer occurs each weekday at seven a.m., noon, and seven p.m. A mass is held at five p.m. During the day, some members take the time to engage in lectio divina—holy reading—a practice recommended by Benedict whereby a monk spends a portion of the day in deep, prayerful reading of a text. In between, some work at jobs in and out of St. John’s University and prep school (unless they are retired); others attend universities elsewhere or serve in positions around the country and the globe. No matter where they might be living, all monks remain connected to their home community at St. John’s by order, communication, and love; they return when called by their abbot, upon retirement, or when the difficulty of being away from home simply draws them back. Obviously, a layman outside of the abbey can live with many of these trappings. But doing so within a community, led by an abbot, is what makes monastic life distinctive.

Abbot John Klassen has a wood-paneled office with large windows that look out on the gardens surrounding the abbey’s church. A visitor will most often find him working at his desk, his lanky, six-foot body bent in a tight angle as he concentrates. Once interrupted, however, he unwinds and relaxes to the point where his adjustable chair threatens to tumble backwards. The Rule devotes a considerable amount of space to detailing the abbot’s responsibilities. None is more chilling than the blunt reminder that “Whatever the number of brothers he has in his care, let him realize that on Judgment Day he will surely have to submit a reckoning to the Lord for all their souls—and his own as well.” When I asked Abbot John whether, in fact, he believed that he had that awesome responsibility, he answered, “There’s no ducking it.” He leans forward when he speaks, his voice deep and full of wide central-Minnesota vowels, his manner one of pure enthusiasm. Father J.P. Earls, Abbot John’s freshman English teacher, says, “I wouldn’t have picked him as a future abbot. He always struck me as just a big German farm kid.” But the truth is that Abbot John, at fifty-five, is an intellectually intense man, an organic chemist with a Ph.D., and a teacher of renown. Elected by his brothers in 2000, his gregariousness and honesty have not only guided the monastery through difficult times, but also caused concern that he will be tapped for a leadership position outside of St. John’s Abbey.

“You do it in fear and trembling,” Abbot John says of his job. “But you do it in faith as well.” He presides over a complicated and unruly place. “You are an order without order,” was one of the more notorious complaints leveled at the abbey in its history. Yet St. John’s is not unique in frustrating traditional church authority. Like most monastic orders, it does not answer to the traditional diocesan church hierarchy except in particular circumstances, the most important being liturgy. It is, in fact, outside of that hierarchy, and instead answers to federations and authorities in Rome.

“At one time we were a monastery that took in students,” explains one of the monks. “Now we are an abbey in a university.” St. John’s, in fact, is the largest private university in Minnesota, an operating division of the Order of St. Benedict, Inc., run by the abbot—legally, the university’s CEO. In a sense, the university and prep school are mature family businesses in which members of the abbey own an interest and work, some as academics, and some as support staff. However, the abbot’s worldly enterprises don’t end there. They also include the Liturgical Press publishing house; a sustainably managed forest that feeds the abbey’s carpentry shop; a bakery that produces thousands of loaves of branded St. John’s bread per week; and the demands of a rapidly aging population of monks. “At the end of the day, you turn it over to God and say, ‘It’s yours for the next seven hours,’” sighs St. John’s implacable abbot.

Father Columba Stewart is forty-six years old and wears faded black jeans and a faded purple sweatshirt torn at the collarbone. His manner is intellectually confident, but softened by an easy smile and a knack for patient explanation. He looks and acts like the academic he is—a well-regarded historian—but he is first and foremost a member of the St. John’s community, and he speaks of it in the same way a man would speak of a stable marriage. “Like any intimate relationship, it changes you. It forces you to ground yourself,” he says, relaxing in a chair in the abbot’s lounge, a small window-lit room that contains books, a medieval image of Benedict and his sister Scholastica silk-screened onto the wall, and a cookie jar. “I’ve never thought of it as giving something up. I’ve always thought of it as gaining.” Stewart’s is a uniquely contemporary approach to entering monastic life, based on a choice that he made after having already begun a career while a graduate student at Yale. “I’d met some monks from St. John’s,” he says by way of explanation, with a simple shrug.

In decades past, the abbey did not recruit so much as receive eager novitiates in their teens and twenties, who were often sent to St. John’s Prep School by large farm families. The notion of “marriage” to a prayer community—especially as a choice to be made from among other careers or paths—was foreign to most of them; the monastery was their sole option, arranged by their families.

Father William Skudlarek, born in Holdingford, Minnesota (“the true Lake Wobegon”), is a dashing sixty-five-year-old man of extraordinary erudition who looks like he should have a tan, but doesn’t. One of eight farm children, Skudlarek arrived at St. John’s Prep School at age twelve, spent two years at the university (before attending Catholic University in Washington, D.C., for a year), and entered the novitiate at nineteen. “I ate better in Collegeville than I did on the farm,” he says, laughing. “And really, it’s been a wonderful life. I’ve experienced more than I could have ever predicted or expected in Holdingford.”

In forty-five years as a member of the community, Skudlarek has acquired two advanced degrees, lived for extended periods in France, Japan, and Brazil, served as a university professor, acquired a penchant for Zen, and become a fine cello player. Currently he leads an international organization devoted to promoting dialogues between monastics of different religious traditions; he also serves as a faculty resident at St. John’s, where he has a two-room studio in a college dormitory. “Someone young can still come to the monastery and have a rich life like mine,” he says on a Friday night, over the sound of speed metal shrieking from the room of one of his students. “But what’s different are the early years. There just aren’t the big classes of novitiates anymore. You’re pretty much on your own.”

On Saturday morning, his habit whispers across the floor of a corridor on the second floor of the abbey’s residence. He passes a lounge that once served as an overflow dormitory for young novitiates. “There used to be ninety of us in our twenties on this floor,” he says, then turns right, into another lounge now dominated by a television. Passing through it into a long, empty room filled with tables and chairs, Skudlarek stops. “This is the old rec room. Used to be, we would line up outside for bridge in the evenings.” He glances out the window at Lake Sagatagan, the silence of the room enveloping his warm voice.

Father Skudlarek is old enough to have experienced life in the monastery before the reforms of Vatican II in the sixties. “It was much different, much more difficult,” he recalls. It was also much more hierarchical. “Oh yes, novitiates used to serve monks at dinner. Tables were reserved by statio, as was one’s place in the church.” Nevertheless, Skudlarek looks back upon those days with a tolerant smile, his real interest being the possibilities that monastic life offered, and continues to offer. “I love community life,” he says. “I really do.”

For many senior monks, the lure of monasticism is not so easily discerned. Sitting in the abbot’s lounge, his legs crossed, Father Simeon Thole is sixty-nine, but looks twenty years younger. It’s easy to tell from his long, austere face that he smiles rarely, yet his hands are so soft that his tight handshake seems loose. Among his brothers, Thole has a formidable intellectual reputation, as well as a conservative one. “In the tradition of Christian asceticism, I probably had it too easy,” he says. Still, he admits that his life—like Skudlarek’s, a life that started on the farm—was enriched beyond reasonable expectation by monasticism. “A lot of things happened to me that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t joined.” Over the years, Thole has been a preacher, a teacher, and a chaplain to a convent. “I would never say I was unhappy. I had a rich, satisfactory life.” He begins to laugh. “Maybe I had low expectations.”

Thole arrived at St. John’s when he was fourteen. “I didn’t own anything. I hadn’t even finished my education,” he recalls. “Now young people have so many more choices, there are just so many more things that life supposedly has to offer.” He pauses. “The modern monk has to keep on making up his mind, saying yes. The system doesn’t pull him along anymore.”

On Saturdays, evening prayers are different from the rest of the week. Monks enter the church in pairs, stop at the altar, bow to the crucifix, then turn away from each other and take seats on opposite sides of the choir. As the first hymn is sung, a monk spoons incense into a bowl placed in front of the altar. It begins to burn and the smoke rises in a curl around the white crucifix. The monks, so accustomed to focusing on the crucifix during the silent interval between prayers, now trace the path of the smoke. As they sing to one another, and then to God, the smoke unfurls across the baldachin.

The psalms and canticles continue and the smoke spreads through the church, defining the shafts of light cast from recessed bulbs in the ceiling. The voices in the choir seem more forceful than usual, perhaps inspired by the additional majesty conjured from light and smoke. Yet it is only at the end of the session, after Father Thole has read from the Bible, after psalms, canticles, hymns, and several intervals of silence, that the sweetness of the incense, having risen, descends on the monks.

The monastery and the circus actually have quite a lot in common,” explains Brother Paul-Vincent Niebauer, the fifty-two-year-old monk charged with bringing candidates into the community. “Both are counter-cultural,” he says in his rich singer’s voice. “In both, we depend upon each other. In both, we have to get along.” He relaxes in a straight-backed chair in his office overlooking Lake Sagatagan, crossing his legs beneath his habit. “And in both institutions, there is a defining issue. At the circus, it’s the show. At the monastery, it’s the mercy of God.” Like many of St. John’s monks, this self-described “black sheep” from northern Wisconsin felt an early calling to the priesthood, but unlike the others, he delayed it “because I yearned for the circus, still.” And so, in 1974, Niebauer borrowed his brother’s car and actually joined a circus. “I did magic, fire-eating, puppets, snakes, clowning.” Eventually, Niebauer became a ringmaster, and it was a good life. “Then my fortieth birthday was coming around the hill,” he recalls. “And I spoke to a friend of mine, a Dominican monk, who suggested I go on a ten-day Trappist retreat.”

It’s an identifiable pattern: Today, Niebauer himself receives an inquiry from an aspiring monk approximately every thirty-six hours; the seekers range “from high school kids to the incarcerated.” Those who appear serious and suitable, and who are between the ages of twenty-three and forty, are invited to spend short intervals over a period of two years visiting the abbey. “It’s not for everybody,” Niebauer cautions with a wry smile, but those who like the life apply for a three-month candidacy during which they live, work, and pray at the monastery. The abbey is as careful as many employers about who will be invited to spend his life in the community. Before the candidacy, aspiring monks submit to state and federal background checks and a credit check. During the candidacy their physical and psychological health is evaluated. Those who pass the checks, complete the candidacy, and wish to continue apply for a one-year novitiate. It has become a select group: The 2003 “class” comprised two men.

“We’re not looking for spiritual giants,” Niebauer says. “In fact, they may not do well here.” Instead, he emphasizes the need for a good sense of humor and some fairly significant life experience. “I want them to have fallen in love at least once,” he says. “Because if you haven’t fallen in love, you will. And if you’ve never been through that, it’s going to be rough on you… and us, your brothers.”

If after a year both the novice and the abbey choose to continue the process, the novice takes first vows and begins a three-to-eight-year period as a junior monk, at the end of which the community votes on his acceptance. The next and final step is solemn vows that commit the monk to a life in the community. Only forty percent of candidates end up taking solemn vows. When asked why the others don’t make it, Niebauer smiles. “Yeah. Self-knowledge.”

Two floors above Niebauer’s office are the living quarters of Brother Matthew Luft, which look like those of any Midwestern graduate student. Currently pursuing an MA in Liturgical Studies in St. John’s School of Theology, Luft is a boyishly handsome thirty-one. He is a junior monk. His single high-ceilinged room is dominated by overstuffed bookcases (containing, among many other volumes, several Anne Rice novels, Catcher in the Rye, and The Wookie Cookie Cookbook). There’s also a single bed and a computer with a flat-panel monitor. On the whiteboard posted next to his door is written, “Have you prayed today? Have you done lectio?” Cardboard boxes are stacked on top of his wardrobe, as if waiting for the end of the school year. Luft, dressed collegiately in topsiders, faded jeans, and a black T-shirt, grabs an empty box with an Old Dutch potato chip logo on it. “This is the box,” he smiles. “I’ve packed it before. But I’ve never moved it.” Father Skudlarek, standing beside him, asks to hold the box and chuckles at the younger monk, for whom he—and the other brothers of St. John’s—has obvious affection. “It is true, though. You are always free to leave, and that’s important to remember.” Luft adds, “I met a sister recently who’s spent forty-five years in her community and she told me that every day she prays for strength to continue her vocation.” He sighs. “And that was just so great to hear.”

On April 27 the monks of St. John’s voted to admit Brother Matthew as a permanent member. On July 11, he will take solemn vows in the abbey church. It is a radical lifestyle choice, and yet, prior to entering St. John’s, Luft lived a life much like his generational peers, for whom the vast majority a monastic vocation would seem as alien as entering a retirement home. “I consider myself a part of the Star Wars generation,” he says, pointing to one of several R2-D2 models on a shelf, positioned between family photos and Byzantine icons. “It’s about the battle between good and evil, that we each have a dark and light side. In Jedi, Luke had to come to terms with himself. That’s one of my operating stories.”

Luft, a Des Moines native, came to St. John’s as a college student. “Last year I received a Christmas card from my college girlfriend and her husband,” he smiles. “That was weird. I thought, man, I’m thirty years old. There was this realization that she was the last person that I would know.” According to Luft, the two-year relationship ended amicably with both parties headed in different career directions. She was interested in management and corporate life; he in teaching and the seminary. There wasn’t much middle ground.

However, before entering St. John’s, Luft would first spend an extended period in Arizona, teaching third-graders. “I had my own apartment, a car, a salary, insurance,” he recalls. “I belonged to a church, but something was missing. I would go home at night, and nobody was there.” He began his candidacy in 2000, “feeling that I could get through it. It’s a summer, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. “And then you discover that you like this.”

Luft describes the brothers of the abbey as his family. “I wouldn’t necessarily choose all these guys. You’ve got your ‘Uncle Joes’ at the Thanksgiving table,” he laughs. “But Thanksgiving is one of the best times at the abbey. You sit around and talk about all the characters. It’s family.”

Like any family, the brothers of St. John’s have dealt with tragedy. In 2002, the abbey acknowledged that over the past forty years, twelve members of the monastic community, including a former abbot, had been accused of sexually abusing children and vulnerable adults. Unlike other segments of the American Church, St. John’s came to a fast settlement of the claims against it, cooperated with all law enforcement, and followed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in removing the accused from active ministry. Abbot John, elected on the verge of the crisis, has been widely praised for his willingness to meet victims of the abuse “and listen to their voices.”

Yet as the scandal progressed, there was still the question of what to do with accused members of the community who wanted to remain at St. John’s. “People were saying, ‘You’ve got to throw these guys out,” Abbot John recalls. “But we felt that we needed to find meaningful work and lives for those who wanted to stay.” So monks or priests who chose to remain were placed on restriction in the abbey, prohibited from associating with staff and students of the university and prep school, and prevented from using almost all public facilities at St. John’s.

It was a controversial decision outside of the abbey, and an immensely difficult one to make within it. For Abbot John, keeping the accused monks in community was the deeply Christian and obvious choice. “We believe in conversion and redemption,” he says, his hands spread wide. “How could we ever be faithful to the gospel, Christ’s forgiveness, and the Rule if we don’t follow through on that? Because the men themselves—their sorrow and commitment to change was important and evident. They are part of our family.” Within the abbey, monks acknowledge lingering anger and disappointment at the accused monks, yet they do not shun them. When I ask Brother Paul-Vincent about the scandal, he explains, “It’s like dad’s in jail. Am I mad at dad? You bet I am. Do I still love him? Yes.” Niebauer briefly lowers his gaze. “They are still my brothers,” he says in a softer tone. “I took a vow to love them.”

Matthew Luft was a junior monk when the crisis erupted, and he admits that it gave him doubts. “I asked myself, ‘Do I want to be a part of this place?’” But ultimately the process of watching the community deal with the crisis—the therapy sessions, the grieving, and the forgiveness—strengthened his faith in the vocation. Today, his doubts are based on more prosaic concerns, and are not so different from his non-monastic peers who occasionally doubt their career choices. “Some days I wake up and think it’d be nice to go back to sleep and not go to prayer.” He pauses. “But then I’d go through the day feeling like I’d missed something.”

Everybody always says they wish they had my job,” says Father Timothy Backous, St. John’s athletic director. “Except for the Benedictine part.” He laughs, his eyes narrowing into a nearly wrinkle-free squint. He wears a polo shirt and neatly pressed khakis. The walls of his office, just down the hall from that of John Gagliardi, St. John’s legendary football coach, are covered with photos of athletes, sporting events, and award certificates. Scattered among them are a simple wooden crucifix, icons, and a Ph.D. diploma in Moral Theology earned in Rome.

Backous, who is known as “Tim-O” to the brothers, did not intend to remain a monk when he entered in the mid-1970s. “One of the things that appealed to me about monastic life was that you could try it out for four years,” he says. “I thought it would be neat to tell people later in life that I’d been a monk for a while.” He smiles at the irony. “Then I sort of fell in love with the community.”

The speakerphone on Backous’s desk buzzes, and a secretary asks what should be done with seven thousand dollars left over from a prior year’s budget. “You know, this is not my dream job,” he says, waving at the office. “My dream is to get St. John’s re-involved in the Twin Cities.” And so, on the weekends, Backous says mass at inner-city churches in Minneapolis. “My dream is for us to find a place in Minneapolis where I could work in those parishes and where other monks could go.”

Backous’s vision is not merely personal. It is actually a part of a larger discussion as to what, in fact, the role of the abbey will be in the coming years. Its original purpose—filling central Minnesota churches with parish priests—is no longer realistic in an era of declining monastic populations. So the abbey aims to take on projects and roles that emphasize its spiritual significance to the outside world. The drive to build a new guest wing (designed by the esteemed architect Tadao Ando), for example, is a project of the first priority, since hospitality is one of the key tenets of the Benedictine rule. Educating priests and nuns from the rapidly growing Chinese Catholic Church is another. “We can’t do everything we used to do,” says Abbot John after I mention Backous’ vision to him. “We still imagine ourselves as a big monastery. We have to imagine ourselves as a smaller monastery. We don’t have a class of monks coming up like we used to. Matthew Luft is on his own.” For Abbot John, the future of the monastery is intimately tied up in its role as a spiritual institution. “What’s the relevance?” he asks with characteristic enthusiasm. “Our society and culture are so busy, so hyper-extended. So a monastery exists to pray, to have solitude and silence, and to serve as a witness that these things are an important part of the human experience.”

Sitting in the abbot’s lounge, Father Stewart, the impassive monastic historian, smiles when asked about the future of the abbey. “The Benedictines are in it for the long haul,” he says. Like his abbot in the office across the hall, Stewart recognizes the important symbolic role that the abbey plays, though he is careful to temper the enthusiasm with Benedictine humility. “It’s not, ‘Oh, look at this shining light on the hill,’” he says with a wave of his hand. “It’s showing that this kind of life is a possibility.”

One of the great mysteries of monastic life is its ability to confer youth upon its practitioners. At St. John’s, most brothers appear ten to twenty years younger than their ages recorded in the abbey’s register. Yet as the aged know, youth is not only a matter of appearances. At the abbey, careers often remain active, fruitful, and vital into the eighth decade of life.

Opinions vary as to the reasons for this phenomenon. Some cite the stress-free routine of monastic life, its lack of mortgage payments, car payments, and job pressures. Yet others, particularly brothers who have academic careers, scoff at the notion that a cycle of prayer and meals is enough to keep life stress-free. While many brothers cite the lack of family pressures, it’s just as easy to find those who reject that explanation and note that cohabiting with roughly two hundred “guys” can be rough.

Late on a Saturday afternoon, Father Angelo Zankl, the abbey’s oldest member, is seated in his wheelchair in the retirement wing, home to twenty members of the community. His 103-year-old face is thin, but his wide eyes are clear and bright, and his delicate, almost feminine lips are raised in a perpetual smile. He is good-humored, whip-smart, and not shy about teasing Father Skudlarek, who sits beside him, or the two nurses at the reception desk. Nevertheless, Father Zankl is a private man, and he is unwilling to comment for publication on the circumstances of his life at St. John’s. It can only be noted that he arrived at the abbey at age eleven in a horse and buggy, and that he spent most of his monastic career ministering to a Duluth parish.

“Angelo,” Father Skudlarek prods him. “Why is it that everyone remains so young at the abbey?”

Father Zankl glances at the younger, sixty-five-year-old monk with a dismissive, nearly contemptuous glare. “They’re awfully slow bringing me my food this afternoon.”

“Slow, are they?”

“That’s right,” Father Zankl says, his tone flat enough to suggest that he is only half joking.

Father Skudlarek gently pats Father Zankl’s bony hands. “But why is it that monks live so long at St. John’s?”

Father Zankl sighs impatiently.

He opens his mouth, closes it, then smiles. “Why do they live so long?” He asks, raising his hands slightly. “Don’t ask me.”

Father Skudlarek bursts out laughing and places one hand on his brother’s shoulder, lovingly assuring him, “Lunch is on the way, Angelo. Don’t worry about a thing.”

Force of Habit
The Rake
by Adam Minter
Source: http://archives.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/reporting/rakish-angle/force-habit

Dear Students, Parents, Regents, Alumni and Friends,

I have just received information that there will be a news conference this afternoon concerning allegations against one of the members of Saint John’s Abbey who served as Saint John’s Prep Headmaster in the early 1990’s. I wanted to assure you all that these allegations are from the past and have been previously investigated. The leader of our community, Abbot John Klassen, is prepared to respond and we will provide that response.

The information brought forward by those holding the news conference will be reviewed by Saint John’s Abbey and the External Review Board.

Saint John’s Prep is committed to the safety and well being of our students.

Please feel free to contact me with any comments or concerns.

Subject: A special message from Father Timothy Backous, OSB
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007

Please provide a little more detail so that we can make some calls to confirm the story.

“Somewhere on this campus there is always a light on and a door unlocked,” says the Rev. Timothy Backous, who served as athletics director from 2003 to 2006 and now is the headmaster of Saint John’s prep school. “I think that resonates with men like John Gagliardi.”

For coaches at Saint John’s, no pastures greener

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — Ask John Gagliardi why he has spent almost his entire adult life at Saint John’s University, and the 82-year-old football coach gives a mischievous smile.

“I think it must be the water,” he says of the 1,900-student Catholic men’s school in the empty spaces of west-central Minnesota. “That or the weather.”

Gagliardi came to Saint John’s in 1953 and has won more games — 461 — than anyone in any division in college football history. He has won two NCAA Division III national championships and two NAIA titles and in 2006 became the first active coach inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The Division III player of the year award carries his name.

But while Gagliardi is the most decorated of SJU’s coaches, his longevity is the rule and not the exception when it comes to athletic tenure. Coaches tend to come to Collegeville and never leave.

•Basketball coach Jim Smith ended his 45th season Monday with 699 career victories, coaching the final weeks from a wheelchair after slipping and breaking his leg Feb. 7.

•Jerry Haugen began his 32nd year as baseball coach Wednesday and could reach 600 victories before season’s end.

•Soccer coach Pat Haws has won 336 matches in 31 seasons.

•Track/cross country coach Tim Miles has been on the job for 30 years, working with the indoor and outdoor teams.

Beyond these five, Bob Alpers has coached the Johnnies golf team for 17 years and will be going for a third consecutive NCAA title in May. John Harrington, a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic gold-medal hockey team, spent 15 years at Saint John’s before leaving last year to coach a pro team in Switzerland. Of the university’s 13 coaches, 10 have the longest tenure in their sport in the nine-school Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Smith was an assistant at Marquette when he was recruited to become head coach at Saint John’s in 1964, arriving on campus by train and taxi.

“I thought anything west of Milwaukee was wilderness,” Smith says. “But from the first day I visited I thought Saint John’s was a unique place.”

As Smith and his wife, Adrienne, considered Saint John’s offer, they had a lot more reasons to say no than yes. They came anyway, raised seven children in nearby St. Cloud and have never given a thought to leaving.

“There was just something about this place that made it unlike anywhere I had ever been,” Smith says. “I think it all goes back to the monastery and the values and the ethics of the monks that are all around you. It is and always has been an inspiring place to work.”

Monks make difference

Saint John’s University is Collegeville, Minn. There is no surrounding town, no accompanying infrastructure of restaurants, apartments and shops. There is simply the school, which sits 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis and 150 miles southeast of Fargo, N.D. St. Cloud is 10 miles east.

The campus lies just off Interstate 94 on County Road 159, close enough that the school’s arching bell tower is visible from the highway. Bordered on two sides by lakes and surrounded by 2,700 acres of woodlands, the school has prospered since being founded in 1857 by five Benedictine monks.

Saint John’s sister school, the College of Saint Benedict, is 6 miles away in the town of St. Joseph’s. The schools have separate administrations, ministries and athletic departments but share academics. Students take courses on both campuses, and classes are co-educational.

The university has grown around the Benedictine monastery that endures as a central part of the school and is home to the 150 monks of Saint John’s Abbey. These Benedictine fathers and brothers have taken vows of stability, poverty, chastity and obedience and will live out their lives on the campus and be buried in the campus cemetery.

The monks serve as academic instructors, administrators and craftsmen. One lives on every floor of every dormitory as an adviser.

“Somewhere on this campus there is always a light on and a door unlocked,” says the Rev. Timothy Backous, who served as athletics director from 2003 to 2006 and now is the headmaster of Saint John’s prep school. “I think that resonates with men like John Gagliardi.”

The number of monks is dwindling — there were more than 400 in the 1950s — but their presence and the continuity they provide help explain the strong generational ties reflected in the school’s enrollment.

Roughly 45% of Saint John’s students have followed parents, siblings or other relatives to SJU or CSB, according to Saint John’s admissions office. The 2003 national championship football team featured 18 players whose fathers played at Saint John’s, three of them on the 1976 title team.

Coaches at the Division III level often wear more than one hat, serving as assistants in other sports or holding administrative posts. Saint John’s takes that to another level.

At one time, Gagliardi also was the track and hockey coach and athletics director. Smith served two stretches as AD, and Haugen, a 1976 graduate, began as the hockey coach before taking over baseball. He also was a basketball assistant and still doubles as football’s defensive coordinator.

Even coaches who retire find some way to remain. John Elton, a 1980 graduate, was inducted into the NCAA Division III wrestling coaches’ hall of fame in 2007. Elton, who is a master gardener, stepped down in 2004 after 23 seasons to become Saint John’s landscape manager.

“I’ve been here 30 years, and I’m still talking with brothers who taught me as a student and running into sons of men I coached,” Elton says. “The longevity of Saint John’s isn’t just athletics, you see it in all aspects of this community.

“This is a place you almost have to experience to understand. It’s like coming home; it’s a feeling you’re part of something good and that what you’re doing makes a difference.”

Community truly close

More than one-third of Saint John’s students participate in intercollegiate athletics; that number jumps to 90% when club sports and intramurals are included. Although the school does not have its own hockey rink — it plays home games at St. Cloud State — its athletic facilities are first-rate, especially in football.

Surrounded by trees and nestled in a natural bowl, Clemens Stadium becomes its own little city on football Saturdays. Although there are seats for 7,500, standing room routinely lifts crowds to 13,000, attracting students, alumni and fans from a 100-mile radius. Despite a stretch of rotten weather on game days last fall, Saint John’s led the 231 schools that play Division III football in attendance (7,694 a game) for the 12th time in the past 16 years.

This atmosphere was one of the reasons Brett Saladin set aside opportunities to play football and baseball at the Division I level and came to Saint John’s, where he finished this past fall as one of the most productive tight ends in school history.

“I had zero ties to Saint John’s before coming here, but I knew from the day I visited that this was my place,” says Saladin, who grew up 60 miles outside Chicago. “People talk about community wherever you go and how close people are, but it’s really true here.”

Almost 90% of the SJU and CSB student bodies graduate in four years, and 98% receive some sort of financial aid to help cover the $36,000 annual cost for room, board and tuition (Division III schools do not award athletic scholarships).

Senior hockey player Lance Wheeler was impressed by the way coaches made room for academics. “At Saint John’s, you are a student-athlete in that order,” he says.

Wheeler and his twin, Vince, joined retired priest Bryan Hayes every day for lunch in the campus dining hall last summer while taking classes.

“We had discussions on everything from the presidential race to his life in the monastery to man’s place in the world,” says Vince, who is not Catholic. “You experience things here that you just wouldn’t experience anywhere else.”

You experience people such as soccer coach Haws. He graduated from Saint John’s in 1972, a year before his father, the Johnnies’ wrestling coach, died of a heart attack while guiding SJU at the national Catholic championships. He returned to campus that year to start the SJU swim program and added soccer duties in 1978, coaching both programs for 20 years.

“I met my wife when I was a student here, and my son is now my assistant,” Haws says. “He graduated in 1999, almost 100 years to the day after my wife’s grandfather graduated.

“This is more than our home; it’s our life. I don’t care what sport I’m coaching, this is where I want to be. My wife and I bought a plot (in the Saint John’s cemetery). I’m here for eternity.”

For coaches at Saint John’s, no pastures greener
March 12, 2009
By Andy Gardiner
USA TODAY

I am visiting Woodside Priory in Portola Valley, CA, founded by the Benedictine monks from Saint Anslem in New Hampshire and as we are German, they are quite Hungarian. About 50 years ago, their founder staked out a remote area of this region and bought it for a mere $80,000. Today, their community and its school sit on some of the most longed for pieces of real estate in the Bay Area. The monastic community is down to its last five monks and they won’t be sending anymore so now the school, under the leadership of Mr. Tim Molak must make sense of that reality as they face the future. He and his staff are deeply dedicated to keeping the Benedictine spirit of the school alive and strong. Once again, it is good to find the spirit of Benedict a hot commodity in this world of ours. We use the word “community” quite a bit in places like ours but forget its most elemental meaning – caring for each other. Of course, this does NOT mean “keeping each other happy at all costs.” Nor does it mean giving everyone what they want. Sometimes what we want is not what’s best for us. Sometimes, in fact MANY times, the wisdom of the community can see that better than we can ourselves. Woodside has a bright future and so does Saint John’s Prep because we both understand the nature of true community.

Fr. Tim Backous
A school much like ours…
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
http://themonkstale-timo.blogspot.com/2009/09/school-much-like-ours.html

And while the subject is numbers, allow me to share more good news, this time from the monastic side. Last week we clothed four new novices (for those unfamiliar with these terms – those who spend a year in the monastery seeking entrance) and celebrated the first vows of John Meoska (again, by way of explanation: first vows can be for one year or three, an initial commitment to the monastery which can be renewed up to 9 years). Both of these events are significant for the abbey. Vocations are down all over the world so this kind of interest in our way of life reminds us that what we offer our world and society still has relevance. I’m struck by just how counter cultural this way of life is. Yes, in some ways we resemble any other family and business….cars, books and the other trappings of consumer society but the material elements of life are always under the watchful care of our brothers who hold us in check and remind us that less truly is more. The abbey which numbers around 150 has struggled with the idea of growing smaller (down from around 400) but once we began to feel the opportunity of smallness rather than the oppression, things began to change. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the idea of so many people under one roof, we began to reach out to each other in support and love. Ironically, the smaller we have grown, the more we’ve learned to be good brothers to one another. I think the school can learn the same lesson and not grow to the point of losing mindfulness of what a treasure we have found.

Source: http://themonkstale-timo.blogspot.com

Monastic life is often thought of as “counter-cultural” and perhaps this is a radical instance of that. Monks are mysteriously able to tolerate almost anything. – Tim Backous, OSB

Hospitality ala 2010….

When I was a faculty resident living with college students, I once overheard a conversation which threw me for a loop…one of the guys had been caught with an authorized overnight guest (of the opposite sex) and she was being escorted out of the building by the resident assistant much to the chagrin and loud protests of her host. “Whatever happened to Benedictine hospitality?” he cried as his evening’s plan were drifting out into the cold Collegeville night. You have to give him a point for creativity. I’ve heard the concept of Benedictine values used as a club before but not in that way!

Hospitality is indeed something endemic to Benedictines because the Rule is pretty explicit on the matter: “Let all guests be welcomed as Christ.” The beauty of that simple directive though can mask the sometimes unexpected challenge which guests can present. Our new guesthouse at Saint John’s is a remarkable place of welcome and warmth but every so often we hear of the guest who turns the place upside down either figuratively or literally. Our staff of brothers and lay people have had to address some interesting moments. The details are not important although I’ve encouraged them to keep a record so a book can be written. What should be pointed out, however, is that unlike a hotel, where unruly guests can be turned out into the night, a monastery doesn’t have the option (unless of course there is some imminent threat of harm to self or others.) Put quite simply, a monastery is the only place in the world that I can think of where inhospitality is NOT an option even if the behavior of the guest leaves something to be desired.

Monastic life is often thought of as “counter-cultural” and perhaps this is a radical instance of that. Monks are mysteriously able to tolerate almost anything. Whether or not that is uniquely monastic or perhaps because of a twinge of “Minnesota Nice” thrown in the mix, it is certainly real.

To read more on Benedict’s notion of hospitality go here:

www.osb.org/rb/text/rbeaad1.html#53

http://themonkstale-timo.blogspot.com/2010/01/hospitality-ala-2010.html
Posted by Timothy Backous OSB at 7:10 PM
Friday, January 8, 2010

(Fox 9) ST. PAUL, Minn. – A man who says he was sexually abused by an instructor at St. John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville is filing a Ramsey County lawsuit against the school, the religious order of monks that runs it, and his alleged abuser.

The plaintiff is represented by Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who has pursued hundreds of lawsuits against alleged abusers and officials of the Catholic Church. In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Anderson says a minister at the school sexually abused two minor students between 1984 and 1986 in North Carolina and Minnesota.

Anderson says the alleged abuser is currently an active Benedictine monk in Rome.

“Because this case is pending, Saint John’s Abbey cannot comment on a summons filed today in Ramsey County Court against one of its members,” St. John’s Abbey said in a statement.

The abbey said its policy regarding misconduct on the part of its members is on its website at http://www.saintjohnsabbey.org/news/official.html

View Full Article and Video: HERE

Alleged Sexual Abuse Victim Sues St. John’s Abbey
Alleged abuser an active Benedictine monk in Rome

Updated: Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 5:15 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 9:08 AM CDT

“We use the word “community” quite a bit in places like ours but forget its most elemental meaning – caring for each other.” – Blog Entry by Fr. Tim Backous, September 2, 2009

[ View Blog Entry ]

—————

Earlier this week, some members of the St. John’s Prep community received some devastating news — if they happened to read a local paper or watch the local news. Others members of the St. John’s Prep community will never hear the news because of the effect that it would have on enrollment, fundraising efforts and public relations. These are three of the reasons why the news was not made public by St. John’s 18 years ago.

On Tuesday, former Prep School chaplain Fr. Francisco Schulte was named in a lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that Fr. Schulte engaged in sexual misconduct with children. Schulte’s youngest victim was reportedly only twelve years old. Fr. Schulte convinced the families of at least two of his victims that their children should attend the Prep School. When the victims arrived, Fr. Schulte continued the abuse.

Fr. Francisco Schulte joins a long list of Prep School employees associated with allegations of misconduct. The list includes Fr. Bruce Wollmering, Br. John Kelly, Fr. Michael Bik, Br. Isaac Connolly, Fr. Dan Ward, Fr. Dunstan Moorse, Fr. Nathan Libaire, Fr. Tom Andert, Fr. Allen Tarlton, Mr. Steve Pavkovich and Mr. Terry DeSutter.

As a member of the monastic community, Fr. Tim Backous (Headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville, Minnesota) has been aware of credible allegations of sexual misconduct against Fr. Francisco Schulte for almost two decades. During that time, not a single letter has been sent, nor has there been any other coordinated effort, to contact all of Schulte’s potential victims. Like the rest of his monastic brothers, Fr. Backous remained quiet. Those who participated in the coverup, including Fr. Backous, are responsible for the pain suffered by the victims of abuse.

Since the late 1970′s, Schulte’s victims have had to deal with their pain without the support of their community.

At least one of Schulte’s victims attempted suicide.

Those who participated in the coverup are responsible for that victim’s pain. Fr. Backous participated in the coverup.

By not speaking up when he worked at the Prep School with Fr. Schulte in 1981-1983, or when Fr. Schulte’s conduct was made known inside the monastery in 1992, or when he took over as headmaster of the Prep School in 2006, Fr. Backous failed — time and time again — to care for the members of the St. John’s Prep community.

Fr. Backous cannot faithfully serve and care for the Prep School community (including its young students and a victimized alumni) while putting the interests of his monastic brothers (including at least two pedophiles and many other sexual deviants) above all else.

Fr. Backous’ decision to act in the interests of his “counter-cultural” brothers [ view ] has had a devastating effect on the entire St. John’s Prep community.

He must step down — for those who, without reservation or conflict, care about that community.

www.behindthepinecurtain.com
May 20, 2010

The following monks from St. John’s Abbey have web sites:

Fr. Tom Andert
Fr. Timothy Backous
Br. Dennis Beach
Fr. Nickolas Becker
Br. Isaac Connolly

Fr. Ian Dommer
Fr. JP Earls
Abbot John Klassen
Fr. Robert Koopmann
Br. David Paul Lange
Fr. Brennan Maiers
Fr. Luke Mancuso
Fr. Finian McDonald
Br. Paul-Vincent Niebauer
Br. Richard Oliver
Fr. Michael Patella
Br. John-Bede Pauley
Fr. Bob Pierson
Fr. Anthony Ruff
Fr. William Schipper
Br. Aelred Senna
Fr. Columba Stewart
Br. Peter Sullivan
Fr. Jerome Tupa
Br. Stephen Warzecha

View the full list and web links… Here

“As a member of the monastic community, Fr. Tim Backous (Headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville, Minnesota) has been aware of credible allegations of sexual misconduct against Fr. Francisco Schulte for almost two decades. During that time, not a single letter has been sent, nor has there been any other coordinated effort, to contact all of Schulte’s potential victims. Like the rest of his monastic brothers, Fr. Backous remained quiet. Those who participated in the coverup, including Fr. Backous, are responsible for the pain suffered by the victims of abuse.” – May 21, 2010

A St. John’s Prep School parent sent the following earlier today:

*******

A Message From Fr. Timo Backous, Headmaster

Dear Parents,

A few weeks ago, I was approached by a search committee from Mount Marty College in South Dakota to consider seeking their presidency. With Abbot John’s permission, I threw my hat in the ring. Today, they will announce that I am a finalist for this job and if they offer, I intend to say yes. My reasons for this are varied: first, it is a great opportunity to lead a surprisingly robust and growing college on the plains of South Dakota where I was raised. Second, it is a Benedictine institution which looks to grow its residential and athletic programs, two areas in which I’ve worked extensively over the past 20 years. Third, it is a chance to serve another Benedictine community that is looking to enhance and strengthen its mission which is rooted in Benedictine virtues.

The future of Prep is bright and promising and your commitment is an important part of that reality. I am truly grateful that you’ve entrusted to us the education of your child and can assure you that our school, no matter who leads it into the future, will be a shining light in the world of Benedictine education.

Fr. Timo, OSB

Mount Marty College has named the five finalists for its new president, with interviews slated to begin next week. The field, announced Monday, features a Benedictine monk, an attorney, college administrators and a businessman. The finalists, including a former Yankton resident, come from across the nation.

“The search committee believes these individuals are well qualified for the position and could provide great leadership for the college,” said committee chair Sister Jeanne Weber.

The “Final Five,” chosen from a field of 57 applicants, include:

• Father Timothy Backous, OSB, currently serving as headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School, Collegeville, Minn.;

• Craig Columbus, JD, executive director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.;

• Dr. James Loftus, vice president, Enrollment Management and Student Services, St. Ambrose University, Davenport, Iowa;

• Dr. William Shustowski, Jr., associate executive director of development, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW);

• Robert Zylstra, MS, of Pella, Iowa, and former president and CEO of M-Tron PTI in Yankton.

The finalists will pay separate visits during October to tour the campus and meet the MMC community, Weber said. The various constituencies can provide input to the search committee.

“The campus visit is the most critical portion of the search so far,” she said.

The selection process has reached a crucial point, Weber said.

“The search committee has put in a lot of time and hard work,” she said. “We still have a fair amount of work ahead of us, but it feels good to have this field narrowed down to five candidates. We look forward to having them come on campus and get to know them better.”

The dates of the campus visits were finalized Monday, according to MMC interim president Carrol Krause. The dates are as follows: Backous, Oct. 4-5; Zylstra, Oct. 7-8; Columbus, Oct. 14-15; Loftus, Oct. 18-19; and Shustowski, Oct. 25-26.

The full-day campus visits will follow a two-part format, Weber said.

“The candidate will meet with the search committee first and then spend the day on campus in meetings with various constituencies,” she said. “Each finalist will meet with small groups of students, faculty, staff and administrators.”

Plans could include two larger group meetings during each candidate visit, Weber said.

“They can meet with student leaders at a noon luncheon,” she said. “At the end of the day, we hope to have a large forum with faculty and staff.”

After the campus visits are completed, the search committee will forward its recommendations to the MMC Board of Trustees, Krause said. The trustees can then conduct additional interviews at their Nov. 12 meeting.

The trustees forward their recommendations to the monastery council, which makes the final decision, he said.

MMC officials remain on their original timetable of making a decision by December, Krause said. The new president would then take office in January.

Krause, serving his second stint as MMC interim president, said he would assist his successor as needed.

“Will I stay on (for a transition period)?” he asked. “It depends on whoever is selected and what the need might be. I have offered to help any way I can.”

The 57 applicants represent a strong interest in MMC, Krause said.

“We had projected between 40 and 50 (candidates), so this was higher than our (expectations),” he said. “I think there is a perception (among the applicants) of what Mount Marty has to offer, and I think they see a lot of potential for the future.”

The selection process has gone well so far, Krause said. The search committee thoroughly researched applicants and narrowed the field to 17 for phone interviews and reference checks, he said.

The finalists offer a strong set of qualifications, Krause said.

“These are leaders in business and industry, and they are leaders in higher education,” he said. “They have good backgrounds and are diverse. And I think (the finalists) all did their homework, because they knew much about Mount Marty and Yankton.”

Regardless of who is chosen, the next president must show strong financial skills, Krause said.

“The people we looked at were either involved in fundraising or development, or they had started a new business and had just raised investment capital,” he said.

Weber added: “We were looking for, but we didn’t specify, that they had to be from higher education. Our primary criteria was someone upholding the mission of the college and the vision to lead the college into the future.”

The finalists represent a mix of clergy and laymen, Weber said. Backous’ selection would break new ground, as MMC has been led by Benedictine Sisters but never by a priest or monk, she said.

The presidential applicants, regardless of their background, seemed to share a common trait, Weber said.

“For the most part, they wanted to lead at a smaller Catholic college,” she said. “I didn’t see that they had aspirations of being at a larger type of institution. I think they applied because of their desire to serve, and this is where they would fit best.”

Weber said she remains confident that any of the finalists would do well in leading MMC.

“It’s just a matter of them getting to know us and (we) getting to know them more thoroughly, so we determine who among them makes the best fit possible,” she said.

Five Finalists For MMC Post
Search Committee Narrows Field For New President
BY RANDY DOCKENDORF
randy.dockendorf@yankton.net
Published: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 1:24 AM CDT

Why on earth would a grown man subject himself to obedience, stability and something called “conversatio morum” unless he was a bit looney? – Tim Backous, OSB

A Way of Life, A Way of Faith

View Entire Document as PDF Here

Excerpts:

Tim Backous, OSB

I entered the candidacy period in 1978 while still a teacher at St. John’s Preparatory School. This initial testing was a lot less organized in those days. We would meet occasionally with our “master” who would in turn invite us to hear other members of the community tell their stories. They ran the gamut from practical (“I joined to avoid the war”) to mystical (“I had this out of body experience…”), so we all had something to grab onto.

Tim Backous, OSB

Why on earth would a grown man subject himself to obedience, stability and something called “conversatio morum” unless he was a bit looney?

Dennis Beach, OSB

Of course, Saint John’s suffers too from human foibles; it can succumb to the tendency of any institution to nurture its myths at the expense of its realities. And no one knows these foibles and myths better than the monks.

Don Talafous, OSB

For one who has lived in student dorms for many years as a prefect or faculty resident, it’s always a delight when the student- Benedictine relationship is not that of inmate and warden. Probably the most satisfying aspect of my academic life at Collegeville has been being able to retain as friends at least some of the extraordinary students who have spent their college years here. Like the many other loving people in our lives, they are signs of God’s love for us, these people who light up our life when present and whose memory does the same when they’re gone.

View Entire Document as PDF Here

See Also: Cloistered Passions

“…we choose to act one way and avoid another not because it will get us fame, fortune or power but because it is good for the community.” – Fr. Tim Backous

Celebrate Positive Choices Month

by Timothy Backous, OSB, Interim Athletic Director, Saint John’s University

In his book, Little House on the Freeway, Tim Kimmel quotes Eleanor Roosevelt as saying, “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape our selves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” I have always considered my every day choices as my responsibility but to call them a reflection of my life’s philosophy is intriguing. In effect, what Mrs. Roosevelt describes is the ideal of Benedictine life.

In community, we choose to act one way and avoid another not because it will get us fame, fortune or power but because it is good for the community. Our choices, both the simple daily type and the “big picture” variety, express a philosophy that everything we do must serve our brothers and sisters.

It occurred to me that this way of thinking might help not just monastics but everyone who lives in community be that an academic one or a familial one. Making the choice to wear a seat belt, to quit smoking, to lose a few pounds, to be regular in exercise—-all these express a love and concern for those to whom we are important. It demonstrates awareness that we are all connected, not just in superficial ways but in a much deeper, meaningful ways. It is a philosophy that says through actions “I will take care of myself for you.”

This is obviously a work in progress. Each and everyday we have the chance to make good and wise decisions that help us and our community grow stronger and happier. As we begin the new school year, let us once again embrace the responsibility that comes with being adults to make healthy choices. But this year, let us acknowledge that we do it not only for ourselves but for the common good.

Published September, 2003
Community

According to Sister Jeanne Weber, chair of the Mount Marty College Board of Directors, Fr. Timothy Backous from St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota is no longer being considered for the position as the new president of Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota. Backous was considered the front-runner and had reportedly told staff members at Saint John’s Prep School that the job was his.

********

MMC Extends Presidential Search

School Hopes To Have New President By February
By Shauna Marlette
shauna.marlette@yankton.net
Published: Tuesday, December 7, 2010 1:15 AM CST

Instead of an expected announcement of a new president of Mount Marty College, officials have instead announced they are extending the interviewing process.

“There were several applications that came in a little later — not beyond the deadline because we didn’t actually have a deadline — and the search committee determined that we would take a look at additional people,” said interim president Carrol Krause. “We had narrowed the field down to three of the early applicants and they actually did interview with the board. However, the board did not make the decision to hire one of them.”

Originally, Mount Marty had named Father Timothy Backous, OSB, currently serving as headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School, Collegeville, Minn.; Craig Columbus, JD, executive director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.; and, Dr. James Loftus, vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Services, St. Ambrose University, Davenport, Iowa, as finalists for the position.

According to Sister Jeanne Weber, chair of the Mount Marty College Board of Directors the three are no longer being considered for the position.

“We are moving on,” she said. “We are continuing the interviewing process. We still have a number of very qualified candidates that we can consider, who are still willing to be considered for the position.”

Krause added that interviewing for the position is an ongoing process in an effort to find the right person for the position.

“It certainly is not starting over,” he said. “I am anticipating, with the Christmas holidays before us, it is unlikely that we will have people in before the holidays. We are looking at having interviews in January, and hopeful that we will have a decision by mid-February. We have had some very good candidates and I am very optimistic that I will work my way out of a job.”

The position at Mount Marty came open in April when Dr. James Barry resigned as president.

Initially, it was reported that 57 applications had been received for the position, which was more than the search committee had expected. The original three finalists were interviewed in November.

“We are still very hopeful that we will find the best person possible for the position,” Weber said. “The search will take a little bit longer as we search a bit wider than we had planned on. We are still optimistic about finding a qualified candidate for the presidency.”

(SC TImes) The Rev. Robert Koopmann will not seek a second term as president of St. John’s University, he announced today.

Koopmann, who has been president of St. John’s since July 2009, will leave the job at the end of the 2011-2012 academic year, he announced. Koopmann has one year left on his three-year appointment and announced his intentions early so that St. John’s could have enough time for a presidential search and transition.

“Serving as president has been a fulfilling and exhilarating experience,” Koopmann said in a statement released this morning. “St. John’s is — and will always remain — the center of my life, and I am honored to be among those who have provided leadership during its 155-year history.”

Koopmann said he plans to stay “actively involved in the life of this wonderful community” for the near and distant futures.

“My passion for teaching and music remain, and I look forward to recommitting myself to the many additional ways I can be of service to St. John’s,” he said in the statement.

Koopmann replaced interim president Dan Whalen, who held the job briefly after Brother Dietrich Reinhart resigned due to declining health in October 2008. Koopmann has been professor of music at St. John’s since 1975 and was one of three Benedictine monks who were finalists for the job after Reinhart left.

In the statement, Koopmann cited the successes in his tenure as president. But he also referenced the stresses of the job.

View Entire Article Here

SJU’s Koopmann will serve single term as president
St. Cloud Times
David Unze
May 25, 2011

According to Father Timothy Backous, “The Basilica is simply one of the best parishes in the United States,” he says. “I cannot tell you how privileged I am to be able to preside and preach in this community. I think if every parish aspired to be like The Basilica, the church wouldn’t have enough parishes to hold all the people. It is welcoming, generous, hard working, caring and liturgically superior to anything else in the American church.”

One day after he had celebrated Mass at The Basilica, Father Backous sat talking to a tall Native American man. Suddenly, the man stopped and urgently grabbed his hand, as if he were about to speak very important words. Father Backous asked him if he was okay, to which the man said, “Shh, I’m giving you power.” Father Backous asked him power for what, and the man pulled out a drum. One side was painted with a turtle and the other with a staff. The man explained that the turtle is for wisdom and the staff is for leadership. It was this experience, Father Backous says, that first made him fall in love with the diversity and unexpectedness of The Basilica. Father Backous is part Blackfoot Indian.

Born and raised in South Dakota, he joined St. John’s Abbey in 1979, where he has been a monk ever since. Father Backous is currently the Headmaster at Saint John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville.

View Basilica Magazine (Fall, 2011)… Here

The most shocking thing about Saint John’s list of eighteen monk offenders… at least nine of the men on the list remain on campus today.

John Gagliardi Comments on Abuse (1067 Miles Away)
Posted January 24, 2012; Most Recent Update: January 31, 2012

Last week, Saint John’s University football coach John Gagliardi again spoke on the record about sexual misconduct.

The long history of sexual misconduct in Collegeville? No.

As he did back in November [ View ] , Gagliardi spoke about sexual misconduct at Penn State.

The first articles regarding sexual misconduct in Collegeville were made public in August of 1991. [ View ]

In the 20+ years since then, Gagliardi has never offered a public comment on the problems — and the victims — in his own back yard.

Literally (and figuratively)… Gagliardi’s own back yard.

Note: In this photo from approximately 1975, a group of children gathered outside John Gagliardi’s home. [ View ] For obvious reasons, we cannot disclose how many of the nineteen children in the photo were victims of sexual misconduct at Saint John’s.

But John Gagliardi has chosen to not address the misconduct issues so close to home.

Instead, in a TwinCities.com article [ View ] regarding the death of Joe Paterno, Gagliardi said:

“I don’t know why [Joe Paterno] even should have been connected to that thing (scandal). It’s sad he’s attached to that thing. I don’t know all the (facts). He wasn’t the guy, the culprit. I really feel pretty saddened about it.”

and

“I just wish they had not hastened his death with all the stress they heaped on him at the end. Underserved, I feel. It was a Greek tragedy, and the Pontius Pilate group hastened his death. He had to die of a broken heart.”

Don’t know why Paterno should have been connected? Undeserved? Greek tragedy? The Pontius Pilate group?

Note: Pontius Pilate is best known as the judge at Jesus’ trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus. [ Wiki ]

Did Gagliardi just compare Joe Paterno to Jesus, and those who thought Paterno should have done more to Pontius Pilate?

According to a January 24, 2012 Philadelphia Inquirer article [ View ] Gagliardi is “convinced that attempts on the part of some critics to link [Paterno] too closely to the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal are misguided.”

John Gagliardi is a great coach with an amazing resume.

John Gagliardi is also a hypocrite… and a coward.

In April of 2011, Saint John’s University’s Chancellor Abbot John Klassen released a list of eighteen monk offenders. [ View ]

Gagliardi knew many, if not all, of the men on the list. Brother John Kelly (after he was removed from the high school on campus for sexual misconduct) drove bus for Gagliardi’s football team… and the other seventeen worked in and around campus as teachers, nurses, resident advisors, and priests.

For decades, the monks and other personnel at Saint John’s propositioned and/or molested friends of Gagliardi’s children, his football players and other vulnerable targets on campus.

Note: At least two of John Gagliardi’s football players have reported sexual misconduct by monks from Saint John’s Abbey. Another player was propositioned by a visiting priest, on campus to teach a course at Saint John’s University.

Approximately 250 individuals have alleged some form of misconduct involving personnel from Saint John’s.

Note: Using the most conservative of estimates (based on three known reports) at least twenty of Gagliardi’s players have been victimized. A conservative estimate on the number of actual victims on campus is a staggering, almost unbelievable, number.

Few people believe that that Abbot Klassen’s list of eighteen monk offenders [ View ] is a comprehensive list of monk perpetrators.

In fact, Klassen’s list does not include the names of two monk offenders mentioned in a news conference the same day the letter was released. The list also does not include the names of several other monks who have had credible allegations made against them, including the current prior of Saint John’s Abbey — and big Johnnie football fan — Rev. Tom Andert [ More ].

The most shocking thing about Saint John’s list of eighteen monk offenders…

At least nine of the men on the list remain on campus today. [ View ]

How are these nine men supervised? See for yourself… Here.

Acts of misconduct allegedly perpetrated by these men include sodomy and masturbation of a minor.

In the Gagliardi household, however, there is a term for some of the people who brought allegations of misconduct against monks at Saint John’s.

They are called, “liars”.

According to one family member:

“XXXX is a liar and I know that for a fact”

“The story about XXXX are lies”

“the XXXXX are liars, I know for a fact”

This same Gagliardi family member also claimed that they knew even more about offending monk Rev. Allen Tarlton. “ohhhhhhhhh yes,” they commented in November of 2011.

They know even more??

Another Gagliardi family member commented, “Most of the people on the list I have been well aware of being pretty evil people.”

With whom have they shared all of this information?

Well, they shared the “liar” information with Abbot Klassen.  The same Abbot Klassen who covered up of the crimes committed by Rev. Bruce Wollmering because of the effect that making Rev. Wollmering’s name public would have on the capital campaign and enrollment. [ More ]

The information about Rev. Allen Tarlton and the concerns about bus driver Kelly, though?

What have the Gagliardis done with this information?

It is worth asking… What have John Gagliardi and his family EVER done to stop abuse, support the victims, and end the secrecy and silence regarding misconduct at Saint John’s?

Aside from an unconfirmed story that John Gagliardi, in the early 1980′s, met with the abbot to request that he “keep his monks away from my players”, there is no record or indication that Gagliardi has ever spoken out on behalf of victims and against sexual misconduct.

When Saint John’s University student Joshua Guimond disappeared in 2002, [ View ] the Gagliardis made no public statement. Guimond is still missing.

When abuse settlements were announced in 1992, 2002 and 2011, the Gagliardis were silent.

It is time for John Gagliardi to make a statement regarding the crimes and continued coverup of misconduct in Collegeville.

Either that, or shut up regarding the Penn State scandal and Joe Paterno.

Below is the original post from November 9, 2011. It was edited [ View ] out of respect for John Gagliardi and a family member who claimed his health was failing and the post “will kill him”.

It is time for Gagliardi to step down as coach, apologize for his recent comments, apologize for looking the other way for so many years, educate his family on the trauma of sexual abuse, insist that the monastery and university provide a full accounting of sexual and other misconduct, and provide a full accounting of his own knowledge of misconduct in Collegeville.

It is time to do the right thing.

May he then enjoy his family during his remaining days without the self-inflicted stress and guilt that Joe Paterno may have lived with during his final days.

Patrick Marker
BehindthePineCurtain.com
January 24, 2012

Updated January 26, 2012
Updated January 29, 2012

John Gagliardi’s Attention Misguided
Originally Posted November 9, 2011 

Gagliardi lives less than a mile from Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, home to over a dozen sex offenders. 250 children and vulnerable adults have been victimized within a mile of Gagliardi’s home.

And his first public comments regarding sexual misconduct were about Penn State?

“It’s just awful,” Gagliardi was quoted in the Saint Cloud Times [ View ], “Just awful. If they’re true, I don’t know if there is enough punishment in the world for a guy like that.”

It is worth repeating… Gagliardi lives less than a mile from Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, home to over a dozen sex offenders. 250 children and vulnerable adults have been victimized within a mile of Gagliardi’s home. [ View ]

Gagliardi could have, but didn’t speak about the list of the eighteen offending monks that was released by Saint John’s Abbot John Klassen in April [ View ]. Each of the eighteen men on the list roamed the campus during Gagliardi’s tenure.

As a father and grandfather, Gagliardi could have spoken about the steps he took the first time he became aware of misconduct by the monks and other personnel on campus. Or the second time. Or the third time. He could have, but has never spoken publicly about the six offenders (Griffith, Kelly, Moorse, Schulte, Tarlton, Taylor) who worked at Saint John’s Preparatory School where his son attended from 1981-1985. [ View ]

Gagliardi could have, but did not speak out in support of at least two Johnnie football players whose lives and football careers were affected by sexual misconduct by monks on campus.

Gagliardi could have, but did not speak about his athletic department’s coverup of misconduct by Saint John’s monk Fr. Bruce Wollmering in 2003. [ View ]

Gagliardi could have, but did not speak out on behalf of the more than 250 victims of sexual misconduct in his own town of Collegeville, Minnesota.

Instead, Gagliardi spoke about sexual misconduct at Penn State University [ View ].

Gagliardi’s compassion for the victims and distain for the offender (Jerry Sandusky) at Penn State is commendable.

When will Gagliardi speak out in support of those victimized in Collegeville? And when will Gagliardi speak out against those men and women who have, and continue to cover up and enable misconduct to flourish in his own backyard?

There are two leaders in Collegeville: Abbot John Klassen and coach John Gagliardi, but not necessarily in that order.

Abbot Klassen has proven to be dishonest, deceptive and insensitive. Klassen is just another compromised monk in a monastic house built on compromise and held together with desperate public relations moves.

John Gagliardi has proven only to be silent… until now. And when Gagliardi finally spoke about misconduct, he spoke about a target 1067 miles away. His remarks were insensitive to the victims of misconduct in Collegeville.

Which reporter will have the guts to ask Gagliardi what he knows about the history of misconduct at Saint John’s? What did he do, and who is he holding accountable, to stop the misconduct at Saint John’s?

The threat has not passed. Those in leadership must do everything they can to protect children, students and other vulnerable targets.

To date, they have not.