what you do with non-religious Catholics who present themselves. A major problem in St. John's because we have a second medical institute, you know, where we have ten apartments with medical families come every year for the semester, for the whole year. We have a Anglican house of prayer on campus, you see. And I'm afraid most people do not know how the canonical legislation is managed under Pope John Paul II. So that's the sort of thing I would set out to do. I just would, in conjunction with the quest that you just finished, I noticed on the board, when I came in the first day, that Fr. Cyprian had obviously talked about Monsignor Baudouin, right? You probably know more about this than I do now.

[01:04]

You know, with the monastic rebuild in France, especially at the Soleil, well it was very very monastic, it wasn't so much oriented for Paris or what was going on in secular society, because France was a very conglomerated country at that time. But when the movement did in fact move north, to Belgium, and Lambert-Gauguin got involved. He had a whole background of involvement with Catholic workers, young Catholic workers in Belgium. And he in turn then, as you probably know, was exiled and ended up at San Anselmo in Rome teaching. And that's where Virgil Michael came to know him. Michael would be considered the founder of the American liturgy. And when he came back from studies, San Anselmo, what he did was bring

[02:09]

Lombard-Baudouin's vision back to this country and in some sense also enlarged it so he also was very convinced that liturgy should have something important to say to rural communities because St. John's is a very rural community should have something very important to say to politics and to the social justice questions. So then Godfrey Deakman was very much there to Virgil Michael's tradition. And what is surprising, though, is that the social implications of the liturgy were never spelled out in the Constitution on the liturgy. It's amazing. It's amazing. Nothing there. You have to go to Gaudium et Spes. And so what has happened then, in the years immediately after the Second Vanishing Council, there was very little talk about the link between liturgy and social justice questions.

[03:18]

But in recent years, especially among Methodists, There's marvelous work being done, has been done, on the relationships between liturgy and ethics. Basically what I was trying to talk about over the last hour. And I think still much creative work continues to be done in that area. I am quite uncomfortable with much of the abundant literature on spirituality that we find in Barnes & Noble, for example, or in many Catholic bookstores, it is intensely individualistic. Time and time again you will hear people say, oh, I'm interested in spirituality, but I don't have anything to do with organized religion. I don't want to have anything to do with other people, with community. So it's a What the fuck battle we're fighting?

[04:20]

I must say, you know, when I read Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Nickel Undyne, I was absolutely horrified by her description of Wal-Mart in Minneapolis. Absolutely. Or the conditions in Minneapolis. You know, we pride ourselves in Minnesota. Very prosperous and forward-looking state. Well, what a horrendous woman I am. And then that forced me to make a practical decision. I will not buy at Wal-Mart. I think that's what we have to do. Make decisions about... I won't patronize somebody, a third, who's an accomplice to what I think is evil. The way those poor people are treated. I wonder what else just happens to them. is that many of them are hired part-time so they don't get any benefits. You know, that's the sort of thing we need to ask in our colleges and universities and the schools we run.

[05:30]

We hire all these part-time people. then they don't get any benefits. That's been going on for years. That's been going on for years. Of course it has. Of course it has, Bill. And I'm here just a few days ago. Bill was on the minimum wage again, which hasn't been raised in 10 years. It's five hundred with me and Seth. You can't beat a thot on five hundred. No, you can't. You can't. And yet, as I mentioned, I mean, we take our own lifestyle for granted, don't we? It is like living in a welfare state. Anyway, do you have any responses to what I just said? Maybe you don't. I think it does give us a lot to think about. What would you have said? Well, my bachelor's degree is in business administration. Oh, my goodness. And I think Martin's requirement to have a business ethics. Really? He has a degree without that. And I don't know if that's a requirement at the state school or even at the Catholic schools.

[06:32]

I think the approach to our program is it was taught from businessmen. But from an ethical perspective, it maybe wasn't so one-sided because there's a lot of corruption in union organization. They break a lot of kneecaps too. And so you're just basically trying to say, you know, what's going to be the least of two evils? Is the union going to be more evil than the management? And let's try and organize it so that, you know, more people have a fair shot. And what is possible? Yeah. What's possible right now? Yeah, you should do it. Yeah, and it does raise the whole question of the great need for education. To at least make people aware of what? Well, there's a lot of places that think that just because it's legal, it's ethical, that it's okay. And so, I would concentrate more on the politicians who make the laws that permit, you know, that are permitting these things, like, if you have so many Barton people, you have to hire

[07:37]

You have to have so many full-time people, you know, who are in camp. Especially on the lower level, where you have a large corporation. Like if the profit margins are above a certain amount, they have to increase salaries. And they would have to, on their books, show that they're not making it too accessible profit. You know, there's lots of ways that they could improve it, but they have to legislate it. And unfortunately, the large power corporations, they and the politicians are equally doing that. It's very interesting. I think the presidents of Catholic universities, or Benedictine universities, are meeting at St. John's next week. because our president, Dietrich, happens to be the chair of that group. And I must confess, you know, I taught at Catholic University for many, many years, which was very, very Catholic, I'll tell you.

[08:38]

You know, because half the board of trustees were bishops and so forth. So, you know, we always insisted on four courses in Religious Studies, four courses in Philosophy, You know, try to push that down as a president. Faculty at the present time know you have a very, very hard time. But I've been fascinated, for example, I came to St. John's in 1958. And I remember in an early discussion with community discussion, we were broken up into small groups. And I was very much perplexed, frankly, by what I would call the muted Catholic character of the institution. And I remember a very distinguished professor, Benedict, from the language department, telling me, well, we're not Catholic, we're multicultural. was really deeply, deeply disturbing.

[09:43]

And then as you know, most of these institutions have rediscovered what it is. We want to be Benedictine now in the same way as the Jesuit college does want to be Jesuit. And all sorts of papers were circulated about that identity. As I would read them, I would say, hospitality, Benedictine value, stewardship, Benedictine value, community, Benedictine value, yes. But every secular humanist espouses those same values. Every secular humanist. What makes us distinctive is that we are Catholic. Now if you have a predominantly non-Catholic faculty right now, often happens in our schools, they're apt to say, oh we don't want to be Catholic because Catholic means the mandato.

[10:45]

Everybody's supposed to have a mandato. Or it means no academic freedom. What I find fascinating is if you analyze Benedictine's role very carefully it's Jesus Christ who is central. Jesus Christ. And so to be Catholic means somehow that we are able then to articulate these narrow gospel values of academic freedom. What are the major gospel themes that Jesus proclaimed? I think some of them violated the last law. And I do think that, you know, people are very unhappy about that. They probably should be teaching elsewhere. That's very threatening, of course, when they can't find jobs elsewhere at the present time. But I do think you would also find that more and more young

[11:51]

students who come from Catholic parents, they are keenly interested in understanding and grasping what we would call Catholic values. And I often think, you know, in running a Catholic Benedictine College, it's not simply the Department of Theology or Religious Studies or whatever you want to call it, or Campus Ministry that ought to be Catholic, but What impact, for example, does Christianity have on what is taught in the English department? In the psychology department? In the business department? In the politics department? All those broader areas. I mean, are they done on themes in our curriculum? Where did you get it all from? Alba Maria. Where is it? In Michigan someplace. Or down in Florida in Venice. You know, the college. Or Chrysostom College in Virginia.

[12:54]

To be out these things. Somebody else had... When you're talking about the dollars and cents of companies, there are companies that do do a good job. Oh, yes. And there's just not enough publicity about it. I mean, I think Procter & Gamble is a two-fold company. I think they do have some union manufacturing facilities. They have a lot that are not. Indeed. You have a toilet paper plant that's a mile long and 125 acres under one roof. And if you watch toilet paper go round and round for 20 years, you'll be probably over a millionaire. They pay their people quite well. Yes. So they really don't... people don't feel a need then to be unionized. No, not at all. And they release them. They pay them well. They give them good policies, good medical. So it is a possibility. In any case, it's done. But there's not enough publicity about it. And when you're talking about the colleges, I mean, I think there needs to be an ethic part within. It's not just colleges and schools. With a vocational flavor, too, because that's not done anymore either.

[13:58]

We asked a rather embarrassing question of our president recently. How many Catholics, committed Catholics, do you think are on the faculty at St. John's? And he estimated, counting the Benedictines, about 30%. I find that disturbing. If the chairs, for example, the chairs of your department are not competent... They'll hire their own people. Extremely important. In hiring. I know what your abbot does. Is that what you were going to talk about? I know what he does. You'd have to have a long-standing tradition to introduce him now. Oh, what does he do? He is the one who hires everybody. Out of the department can suggest a hiree or two.

[15:04]

And he interviews them, decides what their values are, and hires them personally. And this can happen very subtly, you know. I remember a friend of mine, he taught psychology at the University of Minnesota and he said to me once, I don't know why you have ever hired so-and-so at St. John's. He said, out of out secularism in psychology. Well that means you have no sympathy whatsoever toward religious symbols or ritual behavior or anything else. And yet what is very interesting is that man, precisely, who has become the chair of the faculty, the whole faculty and the university, and also the chair of the psych department. I find that troubling. Julian, I'm sorry I didn't get that. I need to say a couple of things. One of the things that I find difficult in being a member of a religious community is that prior to entering, I paid more attention to these kinds of issues and implications of my purchasing rights.

[16:05]

But when you enter a community, you no longer purchase as an individual. You purchase as a community. So therefore, I don't have that power of choice. Another thing I wanted to throw out here is that one of the things that we have started to do in our community is that we've started to look at the implications of our food choices. You know, what are the ecological, the economic, the social justice implications of what we're choosing to purchase and consume. So I'm grateful that there's some movement in my community. And just another thing, just to follow up, I hope it's not disturbing that I could really put Benedictine University on the study military side. We have Roxy, but they're being kicked at it all the time. We also have a peace and justice major in the university. So this really disconcerts those people.

[17:06]

And then you ask, well, why are you in this program, Roxy? I could never afford to get an education if I weren't in it. where you are. The military itself isn't bad. In fact, I would say it's important to have military education on the Christian campuses. It's important where you can educate the people that are future military leaders who have to advocate. That's a good response. Thomas Merton once wrote an article that maintained that monks do not live in poverty. And when I think of my own monastery, I know that we have three square meals available for us at someone else, and they take care of all of our dishes for us. We want our laundry done, we drop it down the chute, it comes back to us in a couple of days. We need drugs, we put them in a receptacle. and a month goes down and has our drugs for us in the afternoon.

[18:09]

True poverty is a man who's not able to afford to go out and buy drugs for his father, who's not able to buy the groceries we have. And it was a really powerful article because it really ascertained that to live in poverty really means to do without. And in many cases, many monks don't really do without as such. How about this, Robert? I always try to make a distinction between, for example, a Franciscan approach of poverty and the more Benedictine. We're much more into stewardship, for example. You know, I mean, I don't know how many acres, we have 2,400 acres of absolutely spectacularly beautiful property. So it becomes a question, how are we responsible? stewardship for this property, and do we in fact make it available for others?

[19:17]

And not simply, it's simply a fact now, probably I think at St. John's, for a student to come there, it's probably about $33,000 a year. It's a lot of money. So can Native Americans, for example, in Minnesota benefit from that? No, but we have quite a good number of scholarships and so forth. But the point that I would make there is how do we make that gorgeous property and all the facilities somehow available to people who live on the underside of our culture? While exercising, yes, by lots of scholarships, but by exercising the right kind of responsible stewardship. It's not easy, not easy. In terms of the buildings that we put up, Dominic will be delighted to hear this. We have a design committee in our monastery. No door can be painted without their approval.

[20:19]

Nothing can be purchased without their approval, you see. It's all about quality, not quantity of things or cheapness of things. Somebody's... Oh, I'm sorry, Edmund. Hello. Nice to meet you. What part of the Earth still exists? It's also our... the poverty of our obedience to a superior decision we're making to living our things up. I mean, it's a mental problem. It's how we're executing things as opposed to being on the bad side. So it's a different story. But I also think then the challenge is, for example, when we gather into chapter, Is there somebody who is always goading us in the right direction and raising the right question?

[21:29]

Rene Magrath is always doing that in our chapter. He chairs the Peace Studies program. Always raising the question. For example, I mean, how you would do this? I happen to be on the Abbott's Council, and we're looking now for a new academic, or not an academic, but a vice president for finances. And so the job description came through to look at it at the council. And I simply raised the question. I said, you know, in Benedict's role, the procurator is extraordinary. As I mentioned in here, he runs the monastery. Extremely important. And they're very clear qualities that are laid out for that person. I said, why cannot we preface this job description for this university position by a brief paragraph relating the vice president for finances to the procurator's role in the monastery?

[22:31]

And I said, why also could you not insist on preferential hiring for a Catholic in this position? Some people would say legal or you can't ask that. You can't ask that. Especially if it's in your job description. And the response that I got, well, we've never done it. Well, maybe we ought to start. Maybe we ought to start. One of the things that, when you were mentioning your community, there was a discussion about Benedictine and Catholic, as far as colleges, universities, that are calling themselves that. Shane Vincent had a similar discussion going on, and it was brought up in a meeting at his conference, and so there was some input a few times, and a lot of us One of the things that I felt was missing, you know, all those things that everybody arrived at, is the matter of, you know, what is the great motto of Benedict?

[23:38]

Ora et labora. Okay, how about ora? Is there any process where prayer is encouraged? i.e., to have a schedule where monks and anybody else who would like to could come and pray at common prayer times of a monastic lifestyle. If you don't do that, you're kind of muting your benedictinism if you can't even fit it in a schedule. Another thing would be, in the case of prayer, would be that have perhaps, just one idea, but there's countless, and this, you know, we need to have, the Advocate Opera have a prayer that every class would pray a week, you know, for a week at a time, and there'd be a prayer for the week from the Archadon, you know, the Chancellor, and it could be Talking about locations one time, something else another time, about peace and justice another time, and so on. So anyway, that's half of what we claim we are.

[24:41]

And are we embarrassed by it? Seemingly. Are we getting too wrapped up in business of business? Business of business? Well, we're getting a real identity, which is Benedict and Abbott. It's not easy. It's not easy. And I think we have to appreciate the complexity of hiring, for example, somebody who is able to handle multi-million dollar budgets. It's not easy. But there are ways, I think, becoming a priest. I talked about experience and understanding. This world that I live in is extraordinarily complex. Extremely complex. I have some understanding of the complexity of it before I begin to make judgments.

[25:48]

And there are, as Julian points out, there are some very concrete decisions that I need to make. If I have to go out and buy clothes, where do I go to buy them? Or when do I buy them? Buy them in August and January when everything's on sale. I mean a lot of the books now, the liturgical press are being printed in China now. It's kind of slave labor. They don't feel proud of it, right? They do, they do. They do. Anyway, anything else? You know what, Terry? Do you have any comments on the relationship between Abbie's and her stores? because there is certainly a current in places that use this field as burdens.

[26:55]

As what? Burdens. As distractions from the monastic life and taking away from the true monastic spirit. And, you know, if you're going to run a school and do it right, it needs tremendous involvement. Yes, that's right. And I think it's part of the history of most of the communities here, most of them. Part of our history. And I don't think we're always free then to abdicate that history. We're struggling right now at St. John's and we have for the whole past year. The University and the Board of Regents would like to be separately incorporated. We also have a coordinated relationship with the College of St. Benedict so that every department is coordinated across the board. adamantly opposed to separate incorporation.

[28:03]

Frankly, I'm adamantly opposed. Because I really feel that if the university is separately incorporated, the chapter then loses all authority over the university apart from electing a small number of monks to the board of trustees, who then become the spokespersons for the university. And perhaps especially, the School of Theology is the only graduate program that we have at St. John's. And I think inevitably, I think it's always been the stepchild. It will be more of a stepchild if the university gets separately enclosed. And then the Board of Regents folks will say to me, Well, the number of Benedictines, you probably have 60 some Benedictines involved in the university right now. They would say the number is decreasing. And I would say, I don't care about the numbers, but I want the people who are in major positions to be articulate about Catholic Benedictine values.

[29:14]

And not to be shy about it. And we should be learning from St. Ben's, you see, which did go the route of separating corporation about, oh, I think in the 60s. And I would ask them, how much involvement do the nuns have in the running of that college over there? We have just about none. So I would hope we don't simply end up collecting rent. We're selling Johnny Depp. Is Attunio on the board of trustees at Benedictine? Is it separately incorporated? Yes, he still owns the grounds. See, even we, as a council, the Advanced Council, we have formulated all these reserved powers. But then when we got the report from the Board of Regents, all the reserved powers are in the hands of these monks who are on the Board.

[30:25]

So the chapter would never go home. Just the same way as Raymond with the same problem. They really gave away the college when they got it started. And originally we had controlling interest, but then it happened to where they added more members in and we slowly got edged out as far as controlling. We still have a couple seats, but we no longer have any of the same worthwhile in the college. and you don't collect any rent on the property because it was essentially given to the late board of trustees. And that's one thing you always have to look at if you're ever going to do the separation, is make sure that you don't use the property and that you always will have control and say... See, one of the concerns and the advantage of being separately incorporated is you're not liable then to major suits.

[31:27]

We're one corporation at St. John's. The Abbey, the Liturgical Press, the Preparatory School, and the University. Our college was separately incorporated in the late 60s and it was always viewed as a positive thing. It was viewed as a positive thing because the monks could no longer maintain faculty, and we were viewed as holding the school back from expanding. Your high school is not separately incorporated, though, is it? It is, but we are... You're much more involved. I have the impression that we have much more control over the high school. And that had always been presented to me as a positive thing, the Sucker Incorporation. That was very fashionable in the 60s, as you say. And then I read A Sense of Place, by the United States of America, published by St.

[32:29]

John's, and then I predict the month was talked about for the longest chapter meeting in history, in 68 or 69. Jeremy Murphy was his name. And they both against that, which inspired me, it was very interesting. Anything else? Well, I'm not going to start another paper. I'm going to let you go. We have to meet tomorrow. So I'll see you tomorrow morning at 10.30.

[32:54]

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