A friend of mine at the pub alerted me to an Anthony Stein Video about my old Alma mater, Benedictine college in Atchison. The headline was Benedictine College Goes Viral For Allegedly Expelling Students For Teaching Catholic Truth. I was a bit surprised by this and yet not.
Only a couple years ago NFL kicking star Harrison Butker had a rousing commencement speech there espousing Catholic belief and defense of it. In this he got a standing ovation except from the remaining nuns there at Mt St Scolastica and their liberal beliefs. In all honesty those nuns did not change much from when I went there from 1971 -1975. Graduating with a BA in history. Big deal that and 5 bucks will get you a ride on the CTA Red line.
In the 1970s I was one of the victims of peer pressure. EVERYONE had to go to college. I was more or less a none intellectual who had no business there. If I had it to do over again I would of went 2 years to a local junior college then on to trade school to become an electrician. If I would of gone that route I would now be long since retired.
In my years at BC it was far from an orthodox Catholic school. Oh sure a few of the Benedictine monk in the monastery still knew and practiced the real faith of tradition but thanks to Vatican II the new regime had no such devotion to tradition especially the nuns who to my knowledge had no novices and the average age had to be around 60. None of them wore a habit anymore unless you count the bikini veil some wore. I remember one English comp class sister spaceout took us outside into the monastery grounds and she divided the class in half. Guys on one side of the pond the women on the opposite side. The object was each side would read a poem and somehow the words words meet in the middle of the pond and drift up to heaven. Sister was on the other side with the women so on that side they actually read the poem on our side with the guy we just treated it like the joke that it was and just recited bla bal libberty bipperty or some such. Spaceout tried to restart 3 times with a this is not working, lets try again. She then gave up and we retired back to the classroom.
Freshman year we were required to take an winter term course. This was some goofy group encounter session. You know where you close your eyes and fall backwards and someone would catch you. Ya right I know! I look up at the door and here are a couple of my buddies so I drifted away from the touchy feely activity and went to find out whats up. My buddy Schmitty came out with, “This S*cks Al! I’m not doing this. ” We all agreed so we all took off and went to downtown Atchison and the wharf to shoot pool and drink some beer. Kansas in those days had a 18 year old liquor law for 3.2 beer which for me was probably one of the only one of the good things about college. Well that and I learned to come out of my introverted shell and made many friends.
Religiously the college did absolutely nothing to get me back in the faith. The religious classes were more of a new wave type of thing which were boring to the get out. I did go to one Novus Ordo mass there and I will say they were in full swing with the fruits of Vatican 2 so I spent the next 4 years hanging out at the wharf on Saturday night and sleeping in on Sunday. At that point I was a deep rooted apostate Catholic with one exception, parents weekend the remaining orthodox monks got permission to read a Latin high mass in the monestery chapel. Mom was in town so I had to go. That turned out to be God’s lifeline to me to remain Catholic and to seek out the true faith as it was before Vatican 2.
Despite all the letters and later emails I got from the college looking for money and alumni pledges I never gave a cent. They did nothing for me employment wise and nothing for me spiritually. I almost sent in a donation after Butkers speech figuring they were finally returning to orthodoxy. I only contribute to bonified Latin mass venues, ICKSP, SSPX (which I will start sending more money too once the new bishops are consecrated hopefully with out the permission of heretical Rome) Carmelite nuns in Arlington Texas, Benedictines in Silver city New Mexico (where I buy all my coffee by the way). I just got an email from BC looking for money and right when I was getting ready to pull out my credit card I see Stein’s video and back into the wallet it goes.
I honestly think things in our church will come to a head by the end of the year and the Episcopal ordinations will be the thing that will kick it off. Finally we will have the Catholics on one side and the heritics from Rome on the other. Bottom line anything dealing with Rome keep your purse strings tight. This includes Benedictine college.