Christendom Receives $3.5 Million Bequest – Largest in History
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Christendom recently received news of a very large bequest, in fact, the largest single bequest in its 31-year history. The bequest came from Mrs. Helen Hasty Perreault, a distant relative and friend of College founder, Dr. Warren Carroll. “Mrs. Perreault’s gift is a tremendous help to the College,” says College President Dr. Timothy O’Donnell. “It was a mighty helping hand that secures our ability to continue the mission of consecrating the hearts and minds of young men and women to Christ and his Church.” Raised by relatives in Massachusetts, Helen returned early in life to her native state, Maine, for which “she had a deep love and of whose heritage she was very proud,” according to Dr. Carroll. Her husband, Victor, graduated in 1933 from Dr. Carroll’s own high school, Berwick Academy, and served in the US Navy during the Second World War. Victor spent the bulk of his career as a proofreader at a government printing office in Washington, DC. The couple had no children.
economic conditions,” says O’Donnell. Her generous gift will shore up Christendom College’s endowment fund, rebuild operating reserves, fund a strategic project to attract new Christendom supporters, and allow for much-needed repairs. Each of these projects is an important initiative vital to the College’s future. “I ask for your prayers for Helen Hasty Perreault, that she may see the beatific vision. I pray that her unprecedented bequest to Christendom College, whose Roman Catholic Faith she did not share, will not go unnoticed in the Heavenly kingdom. If she was as generous in life as she has been with us in death, then I pray that she has quickly reached the Heavenly light,” says O’Donnell. To include Christendom College in your will, please contact the Office of Advancement at 800.877.5456, ext. 1251
History Professor Shannon Receives Prestigious Fellowship with NEH
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After her husband passed away in 1962, Helen continued to reside in Arlington, VA, and served for years as an editor at the Bureau of National Affairs and a member of the Maine State Society. Toward the end of his term as president at Christendom College, Dr. Carroll and Mrs. Perreault visited together frequently. She died in 2007 at age 93 and was buried alongside her husband in Arlington National Cemetery. “Because of Mrs. Perreault’s traditional interest in moral values,” says Dr. Carroll, “she left her estate to Christendom College, to Berwick Academy and to the Congregationalist Church of New England, of which she was a faithful member.” Mrs. Perreault’s gift is well timed and crucially providential for Christendom – the only Catholic college in the US to not accept federal funds – which, as with other nonprofits, has been challenged by the current recessionary economy. “Although quite an extraordinary gift, to be fiscally prudent, we must still implement a salary and hiring freeze as well as other budget cuts to meet estimated revenue shortfalls generated by the negative recessionary
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Victor and Helen Perreault.
Christendom College History Professor Dr. Christopher Shannon received a fellowship to attend a summer seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The seminar took place June 2 to July 9 at the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
Liberal Political Culture,” addressed the intersection of faith and ethnicity in American political life through an examination of the Catholic symbolism of contemporary Mexican-American identity politics.
“Despite the wide range of meanings attached to Our Lady of GuaIn accordance with the dalupe by Mexican-American theme, “Religious Diversity activists, she remains a symand the Common Good,” bol rooted in a deeply tradiseminar participants examtional, pre-modern Catholic ined the work of leading culture in many ways at odds secular and religious thinkwith the fundamental priners engaging the issue of the ciples of modern liberal poliplace of religion in an Amertics,” Shannon says. “Liberal ican public order bound by claims to embrace cultural a constitution that forbids diversity have so far proved religious establishment, yet unable to accommodate culprotects the free exercise of tures that do not accept indireligion. vidual freedom as the highest Dr. Christopher Shannon. value.” Shannon, who earned his BA in English from the University of Rochester in 1985, and his Shannon’s research analyzed the MexicanPhD, MPhil, and MA, all in American Stud- American culture as a test case for contempoies, from Yale University, has been a member rary liberal ideals. “Will respect for cultural of Christendom’s faculty since 2004. diversity soften secular liberal suspicions of traditional Catholicism? If not, what are the Shannon’s research project, “The Challenge terms by which we limit diversity within our of Guadalupe: Catholic Traditionalism and current political system?” Shannon asked.