Mt. Angel
Last week I celebrated my birthday with my daughter, Elan Vital. (Thank God Red Cronan assigned me Henri Bergson in second Philosophy instead of Schopenhauer or Hobbes). Elan and I spend the day at Mt. Angel Abbey, located about forty miles south of Portland in a small town that bears its name. The abbey was founded in 1882 by Swiss Benedictines and has served as a diocesan seminary since 1889.
It’s a beautiful place, perched on top of a typical Catholic hill, with a 360° view of the surrounding countryside. More than that, though, the place has a wonderful spirit and vitality (élan vital). Most seminaries I’ve seen are sinking ships, their administrators desperately polishing brass by coating diminishing vocation numbers with glossy brochures and yearbooks. But Mt. Angel is booming. They have 200 seminarians, divided between Philosophers and Theologians, a solid academic program, and an amazing library newly constructed in 1980.
I made a private retreat at Mt. Angel last December and was amazed that very few of my fellow retreatants were Catholic, though all of them, men and women, seemed fascinated and inspired by the monastic tradition (Lauds, Vespers, Compline, etc.). The retreat center is always full, hosting both private and organized retreats, to the point that they are adding an addition the place, a la St. Joe’s in the ‘50s
While I was there, I paid special attention to the seminarians, and it was like being back in Rhet year. They played soccer during the long rec, ribbed each other on the way to class, and stood around bullshitting after meals, just like we did. I attended their year-end formal debate, and was transported right back to Charlie’s class when Bob Murnane and I defended the proposition that Catholic education deserved federal funding, while Paul Feyen and his partner had to make the heathenist argument that it didn’t. (The Mt. Angel debate was better, in that the audience could drink beer and munch on crackers and cheese as we followed the arguments for and against parents telling their children that Santa existed). The thing that kept amazing me was that these guys all seemed normal, not the driven Opus Dei types with that feral fundamentalist look in their eyes. They actually seemed happy and inspired. It’s the first time in 50 years that I didn’t feel like the Catholic Church was dying.
One of the lynchpins of Mt. Angel is my old friend and classmate, Chuck Trujillo, now Father Vincent, the abbey’s Prior. He left St. Joe’s in Poetry year, and has been at Mt. Angel for the past 56 years, proving that there islife after Charlie Dillon’s Chemistry class. Chuck personifies the charism of the Mt. Angel and is known and loved by everyone for miles around. Over the years, he’s performed just about every job at the abbey, from managing their 1500-head chicken herd, to guest master, to his present job of controlling the purse strings. As usual, when we dialed his number, he graciously set aside what he was doing, and came out to visit with Elan and me.
It’s hard to describe, but as cynical and negative as I usually am about institutional Catholicism, Mt. Angel manages to evade all my stereotypes and judgments. It’s a unique place, and I was excited, 48 years later, to be able to share with my daughter part of the phenomenon that inspired her name.