Downtowner
03-23-2007, 12:05 PM
Of honor, dedication and selflessness
The monks of St. Benedict's mark 150 years of service and struggle in Newark
Friday, March 23, 2007
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
As a young monk in the 1960s, the Rev. Albert Holtz traveled to Kansas for his training -- because there was no room at the Benedictine monastery in Newark.
Now, unfortunately for the order, there's too much room.
This weekend, a special Mass in Newark will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the order's presence in the city. There will be much to toast, including the Newark Abbey's long-time commitment to the city and the successes of St. Benedict's Prep, with its nationally recognized sports teams and high graduation rate.
Yet even in a celebratory time, it is hard not to notice the lack of young faces in the monks' ranks. The average age of the 17 monks at the abbey, located next to the school, is 65.7.
Barring an unanticipated influx, someday there won't be enough of them to run the place.
"I would like to see more monks, but right now that doesn't seem to be God's plan," said Holtz, 64, who was one of 40 monks at the abbey when he arrived 38 years ago. "For various reasons, young men aren't coming to the monastery."
Brother Patrick Winbush is 26, but with the exception of three monks in their late 40s and 50s, everyone else is at least 60.
Through the years, the monks have made friends in the community by managing the school, befriending needy passers-by, helping nuns manage a food pantry, running St. Mary's Church next door, housing students, and becoming regular walkers or joggers through the city.
"They showed they were not going to abandon Newark after the riots" in 1967, said Nathaniel Potts, who lives near the monastery and says he has enjoyed seeing St. Benedict's headmaster, the Rev. Edwin Leahy, on frequent jogs through his 34 years running the school.
"Every day you'd see him jogging at some point. Nobody bothered him. He wasn't afraid. They knew who he was, and they respected him," Potts said.
"There are so many people who claim they know Newark, but really they don't know Newark because they don't get out and rub shoulders with the people of the city by moving around ... Father Ed is not afraid to walk the community. He's not afraid to interact."
A critical point for the monastic community came in 1972. It was forced to close the school because of finances, but a majority of the monks decided that, rather than move away, they would stay and reopen in the next academic year.
As Newark changed around them, running the school has become more of a chore. Once a self-fulfilling feeder system filled with predominantly Catholic boys who occasionally went on to join the order, the student body today includes fewer members of the faith.
Tuition is $7,500, but two-thirds of the approximately 600 students receive financial aid, and it actually costs $15,500 to educate each boy, Leahy said.
Leahy, a formidable presence at the school whose smooth, mildly gravelly voice can sound like a conscience, said the monks need to raise $4.5 million in donations annually to keep the school open.
He offers the school's success as proof of God's existence. "Economically, there's no way to explain it," he said. "...From the prospect of a business plan, it doesn't work, but we've been working it for 35 years."
MAINTAINING ROOTS
Why did the Benedictines stay in Newark when their old constituency left?
"Rootedness in a place is like a sacrament, an outward sign that God is not elsewhere," Holtz said. "God is here. You have to find him here ... It's a different approach than (what priests take in parish life), where you get reassigned every six years."
Living the monastic life in Newark isn't easy. Street noise makes nightly "silent time" a misnomer. And while their quarters are spacious, the neighborhood is hardly reminiscent of the abbey set from "The Sound of Music." Still, monks say it's easy to find meaning in their encounters.
Said Holtz: "You don't look down on anyone, whether it's poor people, drug addicts, or people whose sense of morality is different than your own. That's not our job ... The trick here is to be present to the world without letting the world draw you from the life you're called to as a monk."
With their prayerful presence, the monks say they think they have grown on the community, and vice versa. The book "Downtown Monks," written by Holtz in 2000, recounts a story about an anonymous woman who loved the school so much that she tithed her welfare checks to the abbey while her son was a student.
Asked about this woman, Leahy said, "I used to want to cry. It was unbelievable ... That's asking a lot of yourself. You have so little and you're tithing 10 percent?"
The monks say they also have learned from non-Catholics in their midst. Just down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from the abbey is St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, where Leahy says he learned to truly preach. A little farther down is Masjid Rahmah, where Muslims who congregate in white robes have led the monks to wear their own distinctive religious garb outside monastery walls more often.
LOWER NUMBERS
The scarcity of young monks in Newark is not a local phenomenon. In 1965, there were nearly 35,000 monks in the United States. Last year, there were fewer than 19,000. Similar declines have been seen in the priesthood.
"Our culture doesn't help a person who thinks he's called to religious life," Holtz said. "Now, if a kid comes to his parents and says, 'I want to be a priest or monk,' parents say, 'Where did I go wrong?'"
Experts on American Catholicism cite several modern hurdles to recruiting: cultural fears of lifelong commitments; smaller families less likely to want a child living celibately; and Catholic schools (like St. Benedict's) where most teachers are lay instead of monks or nuns.
The newest member, Brother Patrick, said he joined after Leahy, a weekend pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church in Newark, invited him to the monastery to meet other monks.
"It seemed they were happy doing what they were doing," said Winbush, who wears a black jacket with a Nike swoosh that, at first glance, looks like part of the cloak he wears underneath.
Looking to the future, Leahy said he hopes the school and its communal nature -- with students praying and singing together in the morning and praying together at night -- can last, even if too few monks are around to run it.
"Obviously my hope is, my prayer is, that monks continue to be present," Leahy said. "But I don't know what the future holds.
"I think it's our obligation to continue to share what it is that we are -- as Benedictine monks -- with our (lay) collaborators, so that the fabric of Benedictine life is present here even if there are no monks."
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-6/117462857155890.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
The monks of St. Benedict's mark 150 years of service and struggle in Newark
Friday, March 23, 2007
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
As a young monk in the 1960s, the Rev. Albert Holtz traveled to Kansas for his training -- because there was no room at the Benedictine monastery in Newark.
Now, unfortunately for the order, there's too much room.
This weekend, a special Mass in Newark will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the order's presence in the city. There will be much to toast, including the Newark Abbey's long-time commitment to the city and the successes of St. Benedict's Prep, with its nationally recognized sports teams and high graduation rate.
Yet even in a celebratory time, it is hard not to notice the lack of young faces in the monks' ranks. The average age of the 17 monks at the abbey, located next to the school, is 65.7.
Barring an unanticipated influx, someday there won't be enough of them to run the place.
"I would like to see more monks, but right now that doesn't seem to be God's plan," said Holtz, 64, who was one of 40 monks at the abbey when he arrived 38 years ago. "For various reasons, young men aren't coming to the monastery."
Brother Patrick Winbush is 26, but with the exception of three monks in their late 40s and 50s, everyone else is at least 60.
Through the years, the monks have made friends in the community by managing the school, befriending needy passers-by, helping nuns manage a food pantry, running St. Mary's Church next door, housing students, and becoming regular walkers or joggers through the city.
"They showed they were not going to abandon Newark after the riots" in 1967, said Nathaniel Potts, who lives near the monastery and says he has enjoyed seeing St. Benedict's headmaster, the Rev. Edwin Leahy, on frequent jogs through his 34 years running the school.
"Every day you'd see him jogging at some point. Nobody bothered him. He wasn't afraid. They knew who he was, and they respected him," Potts said.
"There are so many people who claim they know Newark, but really they don't know Newark because they don't get out and rub shoulders with the people of the city by moving around ... Father Ed is not afraid to walk the community. He's not afraid to interact."
A critical point for the monastic community came in 1972. It was forced to close the school because of finances, but a majority of the monks decided that, rather than move away, they would stay and reopen in the next academic year.
As Newark changed around them, running the school has become more of a chore. Once a self-fulfilling feeder system filled with predominantly Catholic boys who occasionally went on to join the order, the student body today includes fewer members of the faith.
Tuition is $7,500, but two-thirds of the approximately 600 students receive financial aid, and it actually costs $15,500 to educate each boy, Leahy said.
Leahy, a formidable presence at the school whose smooth, mildly gravelly voice can sound like a conscience, said the monks need to raise $4.5 million in donations annually to keep the school open.
He offers the school's success as proof of God's existence. "Economically, there's no way to explain it," he said. "...From the prospect of a business plan, it doesn't work, but we've been working it for 35 years."
MAINTAINING ROOTS
Why did the Benedictines stay in Newark when their old constituency left?
"Rootedness in a place is like a sacrament, an outward sign that God is not elsewhere," Holtz said. "God is here. You have to find him here ... It's a different approach than (what priests take in parish life), where you get reassigned every six years."
Living the monastic life in Newark isn't easy. Street noise makes nightly "silent time" a misnomer. And while their quarters are spacious, the neighborhood is hardly reminiscent of the abbey set from "The Sound of Music." Still, monks say it's easy to find meaning in their encounters.
Said Holtz: "You don't look down on anyone, whether it's poor people, drug addicts, or people whose sense of morality is different than your own. That's not our job ... The trick here is to be present to the world without letting the world draw you from the life you're called to as a monk."
With their prayerful presence, the monks say they think they have grown on the community, and vice versa. The book "Downtown Monks," written by Holtz in 2000, recounts a story about an anonymous woman who loved the school so much that she tithed her welfare checks to the abbey while her son was a student.
Asked about this woman, Leahy said, "I used to want to cry. It was unbelievable ... That's asking a lot of yourself. You have so little and you're tithing 10 percent?"
The monks say they also have learned from non-Catholics in their midst. Just down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from the abbey is St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, where Leahy says he learned to truly preach. A little farther down is Masjid Rahmah, where Muslims who congregate in white robes have led the monks to wear their own distinctive religious garb outside monastery walls more often.
LOWER NUMBERS
The scarcity of young monks in Newark is not a local phenomenon. In 1965, there were nearly 35,000 monks in the United States. Last year, there were fewer than 19,000. Similar declines have been seen in the priesthood.
"Our culture doesn't help a person who thinks he's called to religious life," Holtz said. "Now, if a kid comes to his parents and says, 'I want to be a priest or monk,' parents say, 'Where did I go wrong?'"
Experts on American Catholicism cite several modern hurdles to recruiting: cultural fears of lifelong commitments; smaller families less likely to want a child living celibately; and Catholic schools (like St. Benedict's) where most teachers are lay instead of monks or nuns.
The newest member, Brother Patrick, said he joined after Leahy, a weekend pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church in Newark, invited him to the monastery to meet other monks.
"It seemed they were happy doing what they were doing," said Winbush, who wears a black jacket with a Nike swoosh that, at first glance, looks like part of the cloak he wears underneath.
Looking to the future, Leahy said he hopes the school and its communal nature -- with students praying and singing together in the morning and praying together at night -- can last, even if too few monks are around to run it.
"Obviously my hope is, my prayer is, that monks continue to be present," Leahy said. "But I don't know what the future holds.
"I think it's our obligation to continue to share what it is that we are -- as Benedictine monks -- with our (lay) collaborators, so that the fabric of Benedictine life is present here even if there are no monks."
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-6/117462857155890.xml&coll=1&thispage=1