Historians studying Catholicism in the United States will note how often our generation used words like “evangelization” and “inculturation.” We were fascinated, they will say, by what happened when the values found in the Catholic tradition came into contact with other ways of understanding this world and with other traditions. Read more…
On the occasion of the inauguration of the bicentennial celebration Of Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. “Forward, always forward… “, “We need to expand…” When you read or hear these words you think to be in front of a conqueror running on a horse on top of his army. This impression Read more…
Anniversaries have a way of nurturing nostalgia, but they are far more important as reminders of an original vision that can be a guide for the future. And when the monks of Saint Vincent reflect on the history and future of their institution, they must come to terms with the Read more…
It took Benedictine Father Boniface Wimmer three years and four attempts to gain permission from his superiors to sail from Bavaria to the United States, where he envisioned spreading the Order of St. Benedict and evangelizing immigrants, especially ones from his native Germany. Finally, in 1846, he led a group Read more…
In the 1860s, St. Vincent Archabbot Boniface Wimmer faced crisis after crisis. Internal disputes over the expansion of the archabbey he founded in 1846 near Latrobe were rampant. A barn burned. Crops failed. And Wimmer was desperately trying to provide financial help to the other abbeys he founded throughout the Read more…
From the road, Saint Vincent looks enormous and remote. But once we set foot within its community, we quickly discover how close it really is, and the only thing that’s enormous about it is its heart. Saint Vincent was part of my very first neighborhood. Growing up in Latrobe, I Read more…
We arrive with the long snow on foot, our eyes the only light, tracks of the last sled, our path back to the road. Ahead the lake where we strike the match. The wind stales the cold rush of smoke. The water comes easy off the flame, and for a Read more…
For a quarter century, Saint Vincent has been an experience of defining importance to me as a person, a lecturer in religious studies, and a rabbi. There are the unforgettable events: when one of the nuns (pre-food service days) prepared a separate plate of food for me because she noticed Read more…
On March 18, 1847, Bishop Michael O’Connor of Pittsburgh ordained Father Charles Geyerstanger, the first priest-graduate of Saint Vincent Seminary. Since that day nearly 2,300 diocesan and religious priests, including 28 bishops and archbishops, have been ordained from Saint Vincent. These graduates have exerted considerable influence in Church and society Read more…
While Saint Vincent founder Boniface Wimmer eventually settled in Latrobe, where he found the fields and farmland to be more conducive to the community he wanted to establish, his first stop on his mission to America was a little log building called Hart’s Sleeping Place, near Carrolltown, Cambria County. The Read more…