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Sunday, August 2, 2015 • A1 www.magicvalley.com • $2.00
August 2, 2015
An Aging Order 50-year-old Jerome Monastery Attracts Youth Interest but not Commitment
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Brother Ezekiel Lotz prays July 15 at Monastery of the Ascension.
Monks’ Daily Life
TETONA DUNLAP tdunlap@magicvalley.com
J EROME • After a spoonful of beef barley soup, Taylor Schilly tilted her head and asked a question that was nearly swallowed up by conversations from nearby tables. But Father Norbert Novak heard it and replied: “I had a twin sister. She was petite and I was large. So we didn’t look like twins.” Taylor, 14, smiled and, after another sip of soup, politely asked another question. The Salt Lake City girl had never visited a Father monastery before. Norbert She was among Novack 35 teens from Utah and Idaho participating in a retreat called BenedicTEEN, a five-day experience of the Benedictine lifestyle at Monastery of the Ascension in Jerome. The teens learn who the monks are and why they made a lifelong vow of prayer and reflection. It’s a vow that today’s young Catholics aren’t likely to make. As Monastery of the Ascension celebrates its 50th anniversary in Idaho this week, it’s an aging community, one that doesn’t expect a new infusion of youth. Sixty years ago, droves of young men were making lifelong vows to become monks. Today, it is less common for men to make that commitment in their early 20s. For many of the youth in BenedicTEEN, a monastery was a world they’d seen portrayed only in movies. Taylor expected to stay in a stone castle on a hill and be greeted by men in dark robes. Instead, the teens slept in hotellike rooms with two beds and a private bathroom. The monks sitting at each table wore casual clothing and tennis shoes. Novak wore slacks and a collared shirt instead of his black robe or habit. The visit also marked the first time Taylor had eaten lunch with a monk. So she had a lot of questions. Do you like it better here or at your previous monastery in Oregon? “I like the monastery here, but I miss the green trees in Oregon,” Novak replied. What did this look like before the monastery was built? “This was all sagebrush,” Novak said, pointing toward the monastery’s southern end. “It hadn’t been developed yet.” The first Benedictine monks came to Jerome County on Aug. 3, 1965, after the Chapter of Mount Angel Abbey in St. Benedict, Ore., voted to form a monastic community in Jerome. The first mass was celebrated on a sagebrush-covered section of the future monastery property. Twelve Benedictine monks live at Monastery of the Ascension, where daily life is a delicate
At Monastery of the Ascension, monks’ lives are centered on prayer and their relationship to God, to separate the monk from the obligations and distractions of secular life. Days are structured around the liturgy, marking the hours of each day with prayer. Some monastic communities get up in the middle of the night to pray. This is influenced by Psalms 119:62: “At midnight I shall rise to give thanks to You because of Your righteous ordinances.” “As time went on some made adjustments,” said Father Norbert Novak, guestmaster of Monastery of the Ascension. There, days start with morning prayer or Lauds. Mass is celebrated with the Eucharist. “Some may get up at 5 a.m. and do a personal prayer,” Novak said. In the morning and afternoon is time for work, study and prayer. Each night from 8 p.m. until after morning prayer is for rest, reading, reflection and more prayer, and sometimes monks gather to watch a movie or play cards. Though parts of their lives are lived in seclusion, visitors are welcome. Benedict’s Rule says all guests are to be received as Christ. The monastery community works together to operate the Ministry Center and the guest and retreat facility. The monastery’s MondayFriday schedule: 6:30 a.m.: Morning prayer or lauds DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Brother Tobiah Urrutia reads July 15 at Monastery of the Ascension near Jerome.
7 a.m.: Mass
8 a.m.: Breakfast
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STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
Students from Utah and Idaho participating in a BenedicTEEN retreat pray before lunch at Monastery of the Ascension on July 21. balance of private and public. Monks come to the monastery to live in a secluded community,
work and pray. But some choose to become chaplains or priests in nearby towns. Two of the 12 live
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in other Idaho cities — Father Jerome Montez in Boise and Father Meinrad Schallbeger in Cottonwood — but have rooms at the Jerome monastery. They follow the teachings of St. Benedict, a sixth-century Italian monk. Their lives center on the Rule of St. Benedict, a guide based on study of earlier monastic documents and St. Benedict’s own experience in several monastic settings.
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5:30 p.m.: Evening prayer or vespers 6 p.m.: Dinner
8 p.m.: Night office
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Timeline: Monastery of the Ascension 1956 — Father Nicholas Walsh, pastor of St. Jerome parish in Jerome, uses the site of the future Monastery of the Ascension as a “desert place” to pray. May 28, 1957 — Bishop James Byrne gives Walsh permission to look into acquisition of the land through the Desert Entry Law, passed by Congress in 1877 to promote economic development of arid and semiarid public lands of the Western U.S. Dec. 24, 1958 — The Bureau of Land Management and Department of the Interior accept Byrne’s application for 320 acres and Walsh’s application for 280 acres. 1964 — Walsh takes the qualifying exam to acquire the property. Interior then transfers the title for 600 acres. The 5th Bishop of Idaho, Bishop Sylvester Treinen, invites the monks of Mount Angel Abbey in Benedict, Ore., to Idaho. Mount Angel Abbey was founded in 1882 by the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland.
The entrance to Monastery of the Ascension, photographed June 22.
STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
Monastery
Dec. 22, 1964 — The Chapter of Mount Angel Abbey votes to form a monastic community in Jerome. May 27, 1965 — Treinen and Walsh transfer the land title to Mount Angel Abbey.
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Benedict’s rule says all guests are to be received as Christ. Guests are welcome at the Jerome monastery, and people often stay and volunteer. Monks have helped at various ministries doing parochial work, counseling and social services. They hold retreats and workshops inside the Ministry Center and Retreat House on their Jerome property. “If you ask people who know we are here, they will say it’s a place of peace, quiet and affirmation,” said Father Hugh Feiss, who came to live at Monastery of the Ascension in 1996. “It’s a concrete example of the reality of God.” There are two Benedictine monasteries in Idaho: for men, Monastery of the Ascension in Jerome and, for women, Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood. North America has about 50 Benedictine monasteries of men or women. Today, women monastics outnumber men more than two to one, says the Order of St. Benedict website.
The Practical Side Father Andrew Baumgartner, the Jerome monastery’s business manager, takes care of the community’s budgets, insurance and investments. Each monastery member
COURTESY PHOTO
First mass held on Monastery of the Ascension property on Aug. 3, 1965.
STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
Father Kenneth Hein has lunch July 21 with students from the BenedicTEEN program. receives medical and dental benefits, three weeks of vacation and stipends for travel and education. The monastery has one full-time employee and one part-time. One way the monastery creates revenue is through its Ministry Center and Retreat House, which can be rented for retreats and workshops. It’s booked through September. The monastery also leases 396 of its acres to a farmer who grows malt barley, wheat, sugar beets and corn. The annual lease brings in about $35,000 to $40,000, and Baumgartner estimates it costs about $30,000 a month to run the monastery. “It takes care of our needs for six weeks,”
Baumgartner said. Baumgartner said the monastery is fortunate because none of its members are in nursing homes. Everyone is in good health, which keeps costs low.
An Aging Group The oldest monk at Ascension is 87-year-old Father Eugene Esch. The youngest is older than 60. In the early 1960s, many young men were studying for the priesthood. So many young men from Idaho were enrolling in Mount Angel’s seminary school that monks were sent to Twin Falls. The idea was that they would run a Catholic student center, guiding students while
they took classes at the College of Southern Idaho in preparation for seminary school at Mount Angel. Within a decade, those numbers declined. Mount Angel decided not to pull the monks from Idaho and instead set out to establish Monastery of the Ascension. The Catholic student center in Twin Falls later became Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. Many of the monks at Monastery of the Ascension were classmates at Mount Angel. The number of people seeking admission has diminished. Father Boniface Lautz said joining at age 20 doesn’t happen much anymore. Please see MONASTERY, A9
Father Boniface Lautz
STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
Father Hugh Feiss teaches a Road Scholar class at Monastery of the Ascension on June 22.
Father Hugh Feiss Father Hugh Feiss came to Monastery of the Ascension 18 years ago at age 58. “I had been teaching for 30 years. It was getting stale,” he said. So he looked forward to the change. Feiss is in charge of the new library. He coordinates the monastery’s oblate program and the Road Scholar programs offered in the Ministry Center. Road Scholar is a not-for-profit educational travel program that offers 5,500 educational tours in all 50 states and 150 countries; it has been held at Ascension for the past 20 years. This year, seven programs are scheduled at the monastery. One class Feiss recently co-taught was on medieval England and detective stories. The oblates are about 100 lay people who chose to associate themselves with the monastic community of Monastery of the Ascension, to share in the life of the monks with visits, retreats, days of prayer and volunteering at the monastery. When Feiss is not in Jerome, he is chaplain at St. John’s Catholic Student Center at Idaho State University, conducting religious services and teaching classes. Once a month, he holds a breakfast for students. He was chaplain at Boise State University for seven years. “We treat everyone who walks through the door like Christ,” he said. “That’s not easy to find in the modern world.”
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When Father Boniface Lautz was a child he wanted to be a priest, doctor or farmer. In that order. The only child of a single parent, he wasn’t pushed into priesthood. But he felt himself pulled in that direction. “I respected my teachers. I felt myself attracted to the lifestyle of the monastery,” he said. “Gathering in church three or four times a day, that was attractive.” Lautz was a high school student in the 1950s when he decided to become a Catholic priest. In 1955, at age 20, he joined the Benedictines and made his first vows. After ordination in 1960, he pursued additional studies in theology at Canada’s University of Ottawa. He was STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS involved in clinical pastoral education and spent time in Father Boniface Lautz in the chapel July 15. health care ministry, especially with the elderly. Lautz came to Idaho in 1987 from Mount Angel Abbey. He was prior from 1988 to 2009. His job at Ascension is overseeing new candidates coming to monastery life. “Often enough people express interest, but it’s more of a look-see,” he said. There is an application process, and the community decides whether a person may stay for six months. The candidate takes classes, studies Scripture and participates in work at the monastery. “They live life completely with us,” Lautz said. At the end of six months, the monks at Ascension evaluate the visit. They ask: Did he come to know us? Do we know him? The next step is called novice — living the Benedictine life for a year and studying the books of St. Benedict, church history and the Book of Psalms. “It continues to be a time of discernment,” Lautz said. “The individual and community make the decision.” If the novice and the community decide to move forward, he makes a commitment of three years. The final vows are a lifetime commitment. The process is so long, Lautz said, because people need to know what they’re getting into. Monastery of the Ascension currently has one novice, age 60, from Chicago. If he makes final vows, he will be the youngest at the monastery.
Aug. 3, 1965 — Foundation Day: The Benedictines of Mount Angel Abbey are officially welcomed to Idaho. Four monks are sent to Idaho. Mass is celebrated on a rock outcropping in the southwest section of the future monastery property. Jan. 17, 1969 — Later known as Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, a building called St. Benedict’s Student Center and Priory is built in Twin Falls for Catholic students interested in entering the seminary. The seminary at Mount Angel is becoming crowded; the idea is that students will take college COURTESY PHOTO classes at College of Southern Idaho, Monks put together Thanksgiving food then transfer to baskets for the needy seminary school.
at the priory in Twin
1975 — Mount Angel Falls in the mid-’70s. decides to build a monastery in Jerome after numbers decline in seminary schools. Monks begin clearing sagebrush and planting trees such as firs, hemlock, cedar and pine. Jan. 12, 1978 — Mount Angel Abbey approves construction on the Jerome farm property. Dec. 25, 1979 — First Midnight Mass is celebrated in the monastery chapel, still under construction. July 28, 1980 — COURTESY PHOTO Eight monks Monks inside the move from St. Benedict’s Student present-day chapel on Center and Priory July 29, 1980. into Ascension Priory Chapter in Jerome, made up of living quarters, kitchen, library and chapel.
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Blessing of the completed Ministry Center in 1994. May 12, 1994 — Blessing and dedication of the newly constructed Ministry Center in Jerome take place. Additions include a dining room and a guest facility with 16 rooms. Aug. 3, 1998 — Ascension Priory Chapter becomes independent from Mount Angel and a member of the Swiss-American Benedictine Federation. Dec. 28, 1998 — Ascension Priory Chapter changes the Jerome monastery’s name to Monastery of the Ascension and approves the articles of incorporation and bylaws of the Benedictine Monks of Idaho Inc. August 2002 — The monastery agrees with Hospice Visions of Twin Falls to construct a hospice on the monastery’s land. January 2015 — Construction begins on a library extension and new community room.
Aug. 3, 2015 — Monastery of the Ascension will celebrate 50 years.
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“It’s not unlike a family that has a business,” Novak said. “Will the kids want to take over?”
A Youth Perspective Deonno Avila, a Salt Lake City 16-year-old taking part in BenedicTEEN and visiting the Jerome monastery for a third time, said he doesn’t think he could make that commitment. He has thought about the monastery lifestyle but doesn’t think it would make him happy. “I feel like I’d miss my family a lot,” he said. “And you would miss out on having a significant other.” In 2008, the Vatican reported a dramatic fall in the number of Roman Catholic monks and nuns worldwide, the BBC reported. The number of men and women belonging to religious orders fell by 10 percent to just less than a million between 2005 and 2006. Even the popularity of Pope Francis hasn’t increased these numbers, NBC News reported in 2014. “We’re not seeing any increase in the number of people who identify as Catholics. There is no
STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
The cemetery at Monastery of the Ascension, photographed July 15. now? We are a small community to begin with. A
Photos, Past and Present As Monastery of the Ascension marks its 50th anniversary, the Times-News collected monastery photos from its files — adding in historical images from other sources — and sent photographers to document today’s monastery life. See it all in a gallery on Magicvalley. com.
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Novice John Ugolic speaks with some of the monks July 15 at Monastery of the Ascension. increase in the frequency with which Catholics say they go to church. People are not going to confession or volunteering more
often,” Greg Smith, director of religion surveys for the Pew Research Center, told NBC News in 2014. What does that mean
for the Jerome monastery’s future? “You look down the road. What’s that going to mean 10 years from
little place like this. A lot of people don’t know we exist,” Lautz said. “I think that’s a question that’s asked a lot. One of the reasons is young people have such a wide variety of choices to make, but which of these choices am I willing to make a lifelong commitment to?”
Naomi Behrend, 17, from Pocatello, said her family is close to the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist in Pocatello. Naomi has thought about becoming a sister but probably won’t join because she wants to have a family one day. Despite their decisions, Naomi and Deonno plan to continue visiting monasteries and convents, and they want to help the monks and nuns who live there. “All teenagers, especially now during this time, need seclusion and to be in nature, without electronics, to figure out who they are,” Deonno said. “Even if they are not religious, it’s a place to be at peace.” The Catholic world needs the monastery lifestyle, Naomi and Deonno said. It’s just not for them.
Brother Sylvester Sonnen
Father Andrew Baumgartner
Brother Sylvester Sonnen always knew he would go into religious work. It’s in his blood. Since the 1740s, 29 of Sonnen’s relatives have been priests, monks or sisters. He grew up in Greencreek, near the Oregon and Washington borders. He has seven brothers and sisters, and his older sister visits him three or four times a year. Sonnen joined the priesthood in his early 20s. Sonnen said he wasn’t the greatest at studies, and it was suggested his vocation may be through brotherhood. Now 70, Sonnen is the only current Monastery of the Ascension STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS member connected with it Brother Sylvester from its beginnings. Sonnen in the chapel The first time he came to July 15. Idaho he lived in a private home for 50 days. When he came back in 1969, he helped build the monastery wing. He hammered nails, made concrete and did a lot of painting. He worked in maintenance and other jobs before taking up his present housekeeping duties in the Ministry Center. His favorite thing to do is pray. He prays for a list of 33 people, alive and dead. “I want to make sure they are in God’s presence.” Sonnen said one of the biggest misconceptions about monks is that they are holier than everybody else. His cousins, he said, “sometimes ... are scared to say anything in front of me.” Another misconception: that monks can’t drive cars or wear regular clothes.
Father Andrew Baumgartner was 13 when he moved from Genesee to attend school at Oregon’s Mount Angel. He was educated by Benedictine sisters who taught school in his hometown. He was told at a young age: Every boy is a good boy and should become a priest. “I had an idea of the priesthood since I was in grade school,” he said. Baumgartner, 81, entered the monastic life at 20. He was ordained a priest in 1960. He works as the Jerome STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS monastery’s business Father Andrew manager and is in charge of Baumgartner in the the music at liturgy. He has chapel July 15. worked in the Kairos Prison Ministry for 12 years, visiting the Idaho State Correctional Institute in Boise once a month. Baumgartner and priests from different denominations sing, pray and witness with inmates. He also takes part in a weekend intensive program where he spends 12 hours with inmates; as many as 300 prisoners at a time have signed up to take part. “It’s quite a rewarding ministry,” he said. Every year, an appreciation dinner is held for prison volunteers, and as many as 90 inmates attend. Baumgartner’s favorite part of the dinner is seeing the inmates again.
TETONA DUNLAP, TIMES-NEWS
Brother Sylvester Sonnen cleans rooms in the Monastery of the Ascension’s Ministry Center on July 20.
The first Sunday of every month they take the evening off and watch a movie or play Scrabble. And every so often they watch a movie at the theater. The last movie Sonnen saw in the theater was “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I.” “We are still human. That means we are not perfect,” he said. In 1980, Sonnen was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, associated with mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. “I had a hard time getting along with people.” Sonnen has attended a support group in Twin Falls for six years. He takes seven medications. “It’s hard for me to sleep with bipolar. My doctor told me to walk, so I often take strolls around the property,” he said. Sonnen doesn’t mind talking about his bipolar disorder because he wants to educate people. “It lets people know even a monk can have mental health problems.”