Portsmouth Abbey School Winter 2019 Alumni Bulletin

285 Cory’s Lane Portsmouth, Rhode Island 02871 www.portsmouthabbey.org Address Service Requested

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A BB E Y S C HO OL PORTSMOUTH ABBE Y SCHOOL

1949g1954g1959g1964g1969g1974g1979g1984g1989g1994g1999g2004g2009g2014

Calling all Classes ending in 4 or 9 and members of the Diman Club This is your REUNION year!

WINTER ALUMNI BULLETIN 2019

SAVE THE DATE! SEPT. 20 - 22, 2019

September 20 – 22, 2019 Please mark your calendar for a weekend of fun and nostalgia with your family, friends and classmates.

Visit www.portsmouthabbey.org/reunion for more information on the schedule of events, accommodations, golf outings, class dinners and more.

Questions? Contact Laura Turner at 401-643-1184 or lturner@portsmouthabbey.org.

WINTER ALUMNI BULLETIN 2019

MISSION STATEMENT The aim of Portsmouth Abbey School is to help young men and women grow in knowledge and grace.

Grounded in the Catholic faith and 1,500-year-old Benedictine intellectual tradition, the School fosters: Reverence for God and the human person Respect for learning and order Responsibility for the shared experience of community life

BOARD OF REGENTS Father Michael Brunner, O.S.B. Prior Administrator St. Louis, MO Mr. W. Christopher Behnke ’81 P’12 ’15 ’19 Chairman Chicago, IL Mr. Christopher Abbate ’88 P’20 New York, NY Ms. Abby Benson ’92 Boulder, CO Dom Joseph Byron, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI Mr. Creighton O. Condon ’74 P’07 ’10 Jamestown, RI Sr. Suzanne Cooke, R.S.C.J. Washington, D.C. Dom Francis Crowley, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI Mrs. Kathleen Cunningham P’08 ‘09 ‘11 ‘14 Dedham, MA Mr. Gang (Jason) Ding P’18 Qingdao, China

Dr. Timothy P. Flanigan ’75 P’06 ’09 ’11 ’19 ‘21 Tiverton, RI

Mr. Emmett O’Connell P’16 ’17 Stowe, VT

Mr. Peter S. Forker ’69 Chicago, IL

Mr. Shane O’Neil ‘65 Bedford, MA

Mr. Patrick Gallagher ’81 P’15 Providence, RI

Mr. Peter J. Romatowski ’68 McLean, VA

Mrs. Margaret S. Healey P’91 GP’19 ‘21 New Vernon, NJ

Rev. Dom Paschal Scotti, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI

Mr. Denis Hector ’70 Miami, FL

Mr. Rowan G. P. Taylor P’13 ’17 ’18 Charleston, SC

Dr. Gregory Hornig ’68 P’01 West Palm Beach, FL

Mr. William Winterer ’87 Boston, MA

Father Paschal with students outside of St. Benet’s circa 1993.

Mrs. Cara Gontarz Hume ’99 Hingham, MA Mr. Peter M. Kennedy III ’64 P’07 ’08 ’15 Big Horn, WY Mr. William M. Keogh ’78 P’13 Jamestown, RI Dr. Mary Beth Klee P’04 Hanover, NH Father Dominic Lenk, O.S.B. St. Louis, MO

Mr. Christopher and Dr. Debra Falvey P’18 ’20 Ms. Devin McShane P’09 ’11 Co-chairs, Parents’ Association Providence, RI Plaistow, NH Mr. Peter Ferry ’75 P’16 ’17 Philadelphia, PA Mrs. Frances Fisher P’15 San Francisco, CA

EMERITUS Mr. Peter M. Flanigan R ’41 P’75 ’83 GP’06 ’09 ’09 ’11 ’11 ’19 ’19 ’21 Purchase, NY Mr. Thomas Healey ’60 P’91 GP’19 ‘21 New Vernon, NJ Mr. William Howenstein R ’52 P’87 GP’10 ’17 ’21 ’22 Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Mr. Barnet Phillips, IV ’66 Greenwich, CT R

deceased

Abbott Gregory Mohrman, O.S.B. St. Louis, MO

Father Paschal with current Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Form students outside of St. Benet’s in 2018.

Mr. Philip V. Moyles, Jr. ’82 Annual Fund Chair Rye, NY

knowledge and grace remains the same. Your gifts to the Annual Fund make it possible to fulfill our Mission and ensure

While much has changed since the early 90s, Portsmouth Abbey’s Mission of helping young men and women grow in that today’s students are equipped with the resources, skills, and knowledge to become the future leaders in the world.

Join us in support of our Mission by making your Annual Fund gift today at www.portsmouthabbey.org/makeagift.

Front cover: Ignatius MacLellan ’77, managing director in the Homeownership Division at New Hampshire’s Housing Finance Authority and leader of a volunteer group that travels to El Salvador each year to work with Epilogos Charities.

Please contact Director of the Annual Fund Alexandra Karppinen at akarppinen@portsmouthabbey.org or 401-643-1204 with any questions about the Annual Fund.

MEET PORTSMOUTH ABBEY’S PRIOR ADMINISTRATOR

FATHER MICHAEL BRUNNER, O.S.B.

FATHER MICHAEL G. BRUNNER, O.S.B.,

Fr. Michael resides in the monastery (in separate

is the new Prior Administrator of the Abbey of St.

quarters from the rest of his household: his seven

Gregory the Great and Our Lady, Queen of Peace, ap-

Throughout Father Michael’s education parrots!)

pointed in September 2018. Father Michael is famil-

and career, his intensive study of Catholicism, Islam,

iar with the Portsmouth Abbey community, having

mystic poetry and music and aviculture – has shaped

served on the monastic council and on the School’s

a fascinating life. He describes himself as an ethno-

Board of Regents while living in Saint Louis, teaching

musicologist, with over 115,000 music files on his

at St. Louis Priory and serving as pastor of St. An-

iTunes account.

selm Church. In 2016, Portsmouth began a partnership with Saint Louis Abbey, one of the two other English Benedictine monasteries in the United States, to foster the growth of monastic life. In addition to Father Michael, two St. Louis monks live and serve at Portsmouth. Father Michael steps into an important new role and ministry, as he strengthens the collaboration between Portsmouth and St. Louis, and helps set Portsmouth on the path to a sustainable future.

Father Michael grew up in Rochester, New York, as the youngest of four siblings. At 18, he joined the St. Joseph Society of the Sacred Heart. “I was involved in the civil rights movement,” he explains, “and the Josephites were founded after the Civil War to serve freed slaves.” After two years in the Josephites’ program and a year’s novitiate, he enrolled in Howard University, as one of the few non-African-American

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PAGE 1

students. “The Josephites sent students to Howard

thought there might be a crackdown, and I turned

to be acculturated into the black community,” he

out to be right.”

explains. “All of my friends were African-American until I went to St. Louis in 1997.” After a semester, he began to question things about the faith. “At that time the Church wasn’t so skilled at answering questions, or maybe I was just young and obtuse.”

Continuing his personal study, Father Michael was drawn to mystical writers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Attar and Rumi. “All religions meet on the level of mysticism,” he says. “Catholic monks, Islamic Sufis, Buddhist monks, mystic traditions in Judaism –

He left the seminary, but continued at Howard and

all pursue a personal relationship with God, beneath

found work at a nearby hotel. “I fell in love with

the surface. Islam says God is closer to us than our

the hotel business,” he recalls. “Working with people

jugular vein. Hinduism teaches peeling off the layers

was fascinating, especially Washington’s internation-

of illusion that cover our lives, to get to the heart of

al clientele.” As graduation approached, he planned

the truth, finding ourselves as we find God.” Mysti-

to join the Peace Corps,

cism is often expressed

but his hotel manager re-

in poetry and music.

signed suddenly. He called the owner: “If you need a manager, I’m available!”

He reflects, “I was a desk clerk, but they gave me a shot.” He graduated from Howard with a B.A. in sociology in 1973 and

“All religions meet on the level of mysticism. Catholic monks, Islamic Sufis, Buddhist monks, mystic traditions in Judaism – all pursue a personal relationship with God, beneath the surface.”

“Music speaks to the heart, and it moves us in ways we can’t often explain. Many of the devotions in Sufism are connected to music, particularly the Sufi order that

built a 25-year hospitality

Rumi founded, that

career in New York City,

some call the whirling

Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Miami Beach.

Throughout this time, he studied non-Christian religions. “My mother and brother had had cultural connections with Islam,” he recalls, “and at Howard, my Muslim friends and I were influenced by Malcolm X.” He converted to Islam and began studying at Washington’s Islamic Center and Johns Hopkins’ School of International Studies. “Our local Muslim community wanted to develop more American Muslim scholars and offered me a scholarship to AlAzhar University in Cairo,” he says. “At that time, Egyptian politics took a turn as Anwar Sadat began talks with Menachem Begin. It seemed risky to go: I

PAGE 2

dervishes – kinetic prayer that is meant to capture the movement of the planets around a central point, representing that all of creation revolves around God.” He found meaning in Attar’s “Conference of the Birds,” an epic 12th-century Persian poem about the search for God. “The birds find that the kingdom of God is within each of us, as Jesus said. Like the birds of this story, we take flight together, but the journey will be different for each of us. The poet tells us that truth is not static; we each tread a path according to our own capacity, which evolves as we evolve.” In mysticism, he found answers to some of his old questions about the faith. “To me, pursuing

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

God on the level of mysticism made sense. God is

taught Moral Theology, The Church and the Poor,

love; God is above logic.”

and World Religions at St. Louis Priory, and served

A critical moment occurred on the road to Rochester. “I always spent Christmas with family,” he says.

“Even as a Muslim, I liked Christmas and its traditions. One year, driving through the Susquehanna Valley with its Currier-and-Ives scenery, I was listening to Christmas music, and a question was posed to

as headmaster from 2005 through 2012, when he became pastor of Saint Anselm Parish. “I didn’t plan to be a teacher,” he says. “I probably learn more from my students than they do from me, especially from students of different cultures, in the inner cities or gentrifying suburbs.”

me. It wasn’t like St. Paul – I didn’t get knocked off

As Portsmouth’s Prior Administrator, Father Mi-

my horse – but a voice in my head said, ‘What do

chael’s priority is to build the monastic community’s

you think about Jesus Christ?’ I couldn’t ignore it.

vocations in order to enhance the vibrancy of life

It suddenly all made sense, that Jesus was God and

within the monastery. “I have some ideas, but I need

became a human being out of love for us. I couldn’t

to be here for a while and walk in their shoes. Our

remain a Muslim.”

monks have taken the

He connected with a nearby

congregation

through an old friend, and before long, he was teaching CCD. He became director of religious

education

and

youth minister at a multicultural parish outside

“A voice in my head said, ‘What do you think about Jesus Christ?’

I couldn’t ignore it. It suddenly all made sense, that Jesus was God and became a human being out of love for us. I couldn’t remain a Muslim.”

Washington, D.C. “I be-

vow of stability, so they are here, and have been here, for the long view.

I can make suggestions, and we’ll work toward consensus while honoring customs and traditions that are important to keep. Our goal is to continue making our monastery more appeal-

gan to think that maybe God wanted me to do something besides making money for other people. I had no wife or children, and I thought there might be something else.” He started exploring religious communities, and found that many did not accept men over 40. “I had a Muslim name, which may have been off-putting.

St. Louis Abbey was welcoming. Monasteries accept that God works in strange ways, since they work on the mystic level.” He made his profession as a Benedictine monk at St. Louis Abbey in 1998. He studied philosophy at St. Louis University and earned a master’s degree at Aquinas Institute of Theology. He

ing to people looking for a vocation.” As the Portsmouth Abbey monastery approaches its 100-year anniversary, there is optimism in the air and reason to rejoice. The partnership with St. Louis Abbey is already helping replenish Portsmouth’s monastic community, and a new monk has recently arrived: a young man from Philadelphia, who was born in the Andaman Islands in India. “That’s the way the Holy Spirit works – I call him the miracle monk,” Father Michael says. “He went through the novitiate in St. Louis and made his first vows, or simple profession, here in Portsmouth in December. He’s a wonderful

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PAGE 3

young man, and I look forward to learning more about

A Psittacine Aviculturist at Portsmouth

what led him to us.” The expectation is that Portsmouth

“My family always had pets. My mother

Abbey’s new monks will also enhance community life for faculty and students, as they take up teaching positions within the curriculum and invigorate the spiritual life of the campus residential Houses.

Years ago, St. Louis Abbey upgraded their monastery, which had been in disrepair: windows didn’t close, ceiling tiles were falling, plumbing and electrical systems didn’t work. “After we improved the facilities, our population exploded!” Father Michael exclaims. “Here at

was an amazing person; she had a pet quail that would run around the house. She would hatch the eggs. Then, in high school, I won a parakeet at a school fair and brought it home.

It was interesting. Even my father liked the parakeet. We taught it some German.

“When I bought my first house in Maryland, I bought a pair of conures – small parrots –

Portsmouth, our church is a work of art, but the inte-

so noisy I had to give them away. I visited a

rior spaces of the monastery are dark. We can begin with

place that sold parrots, and a large yellow-

brighter light bulbs.” Installing an elevator will allow

necked Amazon took a strong interest in

some older monks to remain in residence.

me; he picked me out. Parrots are amazing

Looking into the monastery’s future, he sees a brighter physical plant and an increasing number of monks who play an active role in the school community. “The School is in great shape – faculty, students – so my priority is to not break anything,” he says. Along with the Portsmouth monks who teach, monks from St. Louis Abbey have joined the faculty. Father Michael is teaching World

animals. They need interaction, and they can live to be 70 or 80 years old. They learn to use sound the way we do, through association, what happens when you say this or that. It’s unusual to have that connection with an animal. I guess they are addictive, because I ended up with about 25 birds

Religion to the Fifth-Form students, a course he taught

within a few years!

at St. Louis Priory. “I find it energizing to teach and be

“They occupied two rooms in my house, and

involved with the students. Portsmouth students are cu-

I made the mistake of putting them in the

rious about the monastery, and they’ve never been in-

room with my books. They chew anything

side. St. Louis Priory students are in and out of our mon-

they can reach from their cages; one chewed

astery all the time.” He believes tours can bring small

the corners of my Koran! I would let them out

groups of Portsmouth students into certain monastery spaces at appropriate times, and other new customs will grow. “Some things will need consensus, and some things I can do as Prior Administrator. I’d like to host regular student gatherings in my quarters, on the ground floor near the new science building and big meeting room. Father Michael concludes with a smile, “We’ll have pizza.

Students will come.”

PAGE 4

of their cages when I fed them. Some I could trust to be out for longer, but never outdoors.

They fly up into a tree and don’t know what to do; they become terrified.”

PAGE 5

The following talk was given by Portsmouth Abbey School English Department Head Don Cowan to attendees of the 2018 Portsmouth Insitute for Faith and Culture Summer Conference, including His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, and the Most Reverend Robert C. Evans, Auxiliary Bishop of Providence.

THE WORK OF PORTSMOUTH ABBEY SCHOOL Good evening attendees of the Portsmouth Institute’s conference on Faith, Family, and Civilization.

My name is Don Cowan and it is an honor for me to speak to you briefly about the extraordinary work of Portsmouth Abbey School – the premiere Catholic boarding school in New England.

I feel privileged to be a member of this small community in Christ. As this is a conference on Faith, Family, and Civilization, I feel especially enlightened because my job as a high school teacher is mostly to civilize the uncivilized.

I have taught high school students for over 15 years, I am beginning my ninth here at the Abbey. And, there’s one thing I have learned for certain: life takes a big turn in high school. But believe it or not, the biggest turn is an intellectual turn. Youth at this age universally embrace one major insight about existence – things are not as they seem. The success of a high school depends on whether it puts the right teachers in place to attend to that insight, because with that insight can come cynicism, which is the greatest enemy to education and culture. The cynic says: things are not as they seem so I can dismiss them. That dismissiveness leads to intransigence and elitism.

One may never have to change if they can dismiss truths outright.

We at the Abbey are devoted to standing up against cynicism. It cannot be a part of life. It cannot be a part of culture. It has no place in the classroom. So in response to “things are not as they seem,” we say “look deeper, what are they

PAGE 6

really?” For example, HUMILITY seems like a form of weakness and blind subservience, but in reality it requires the highest form of courage and self-sacrifice. FREEDOM seems like the fewer the limits the better, but in reality without limitations one cannot be free to be great. CREATIVITY seems like random and reckless self-abandon, but real creativity has fortitude- the ability to withstand attacks or defend the defenseless. It’s true, things are not as they seem. But they might be better than what they seem. So what is the antidote to cynicism? Pietas. Aeneas’s heroic quality. Pious Aeneas. We all have a sense of what piety is, but if we define it by the heroism of Aeneas, it is openness. To be open. Community, real community, depends on a people open to truth. Our community hopes and believes that the students will be open to Christ, who is at the center of our classrooms. And who we know to be the way, the truth, and the life.

Portsmouth Abbey is a place for the education of the whole person. We embrace the rich Catholic intellectual tradition. We do not isolate our classes from each other: theology, literature, philosophy, and history are learned in context with one another. The church is here, Christ is here, there is Mass every day, and students often dine with a monk as you have here this evening.

What we are doing here is both ancient and light years ahead. Please, from time to time, look online at what we are doing and keep us in your prayers.

Thank you.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

in this issue Stay Connected

Meet Portsmouth Abbey Prior Administrator Fr. Michael Brunner, O.S.B. 1

To keep up with general news and information

Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture Summer Conference 2019

5 6

alumni events here on campus and around the

The Work of Portsmouth Abbey School: Address given at the Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture Summer Conference 2018

by English Department Head Don Cowan

country. And please remember to share news

We Welcome Portsmouth Abbey’s New Regents

8

about Portsmouth Abbey School, we encourage you to bookmark the www.portsmouthabbey. org website. Check our listing of upcoming

with our Office of Alumni Affairs.

Scholars in Our Monastery by Dom Julian Stead, O.S.B. ’43

10

On Meditation by Dom Aelred Graham, O.S.B.

18

address (send to: info@portsmouthabbey.org).

God’s Workshop by Dr. Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury

23

To submit class notes and photos (1-5 MB), please

The Inaugural Oxford Summer Programme by Christopher Fisher

30

Reunion 2018 Wrapup

32

If you would like to receive our e-newsletter, Musings, please make sure we have your email

email: classnotes@portsmouthabbey.org or mail to Portsmouth Abbey Office of Development and Alumni Affairs, 285 Cory’s Lane, Portsmouth, Rhode Island 02871.

Portsmouth Abbey’s Alumni Bulletin is pub-

Alumni Profiles: Ignatius MacLellan ’77 Peter McCaffery ’63 Jamal Burk ’06 Elizabeth Colley Chwalk ’03

38 42 47 48

The Portsmouth Abbey School 18th Scholarship Golf Tournament

49

Wonder: What Happens When God’s Plan Is Better Than Our Plan B?

by Rev. Jacob Sahms ’95

50

Portsmouth, RI.

Spotlight on Julia Lamarre ’19

52

If you have opinions or comments on the articles

Focusing on a Vanishing Breed by Andrew Califf ’18

54

contained in our Bulletin, please email: commu-

What Is Your Favorite Subject? by Director of Admission Steve Pietraszek ’96

60

Portsmouth Abbey School Parents’ Association by 2018-19 Parents’ Association Chairs Chris and Deb Falvey P ’18 ’20

61

Portsmouth Abbey School’s New Campus Map

64

Portsmouth Abbey Returns to Asia

by Director of Development & Alumni Affairs Matt Walter

66

content, length, grammar, magazine style, and suitabilty to the mission of Portsmouth Abbey

Planned Giving

69

Abbot’s Reception Wrapup

70

Fall 2018 Athletics

72

Milestones: Weddings, Births, Necrology

76

In Memoriam

82

lished

bi-annually for alumni, parents and

friends by Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic Benedictine preparatory school for young men and women in Forms III-VI (grades 9-12) in

nications @ portsmouthabbey.org or write to the Office of Communications, Portsmouth Abbey School, 285 Cory’s Lane, Portsmouth, RI 02871 Please include your name and phone number.

The editors reserve the right to edit articles for

School.

Headmaster: Daniel McDonough Director of Development: Matthew Walter Editors: Kathy Heydt, Amanda Cody Design: Kathy Heydt Photography: Jez Coulson, Louis Walker, Marianne Lee, Amanda Cody, Kathy Heydt

James C. Ferrer ’66 Robert McKinney Barnes, Jr. ’68 James G. Morrell ’68

Individual photos seen in alumni profiles have

Class Notes

85

been supplied courtesy of the respective alumni.

Portsmouth Abbey Summer Program

96

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WE WELCOME PORTSMOUTH ABBEY’S NEW REGENTS ABBY BENSON ’92 Abby Benson currently serves as assistant vice chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Abby oversees the Office of Industry Collaboration (OIC) and the AeroSpace Ventures (ASV) initiative, which both aim to encourage cross-campus collaborations leading to new discoveries and innovations, and to promote and support mutually beneficial partnerships between CU Boulder and industry.

Abby previously served as associate vice president of government relations at the University of Colorado. In this role, Abby ensured the flow of information between the university and government stakeholders, and advocated for increased support of CU priorities, including research and education funding and policies, at both the state and federal levels.

Abby has also served in several leadership roles including chair of the Association of American Universities Council on Federal Relations and a member of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities Council on Government Affairs Execu-

PAGE 8

tive Committee. In 2012, Abby served as president of the Science Coalition, an organization dedicated to strengthening the federal government’s investment in university-based scientific, medical, engineering, and agricultural research.

Prior to joining CU, Abby held the position of assistant director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Washington, D.C., office. Abby also served for over nine years as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Earlier in her career, Abby worked as an earth scientist for Tetra Tech and Arthur D. Little. Abby earned a BS in geology and geophysics from Yale University and a MS and MEng in transportation and logistics from MIT. Abby currently serves on the board of the Colorado Space Business Roundtable, the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, and Boulder Aquatic Masters. She is an avid skier, hiker, and swimmer who enjoys getting back to visit extended family in her home state of Rhode Island as often as possible.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

GANG (JASON) DING P’18

CARA GONTARZ HUME ’99

Gang (Jason) Ding is the founder of Qingdao DongLu Industrial Group, Ltd., and its subsidiaries, which are located in Qingdao, China, and specialize in manufacturing and export business. Jason holds a bachelor’s degree from Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and started his business career in 1991. He has contributed his entire life to international business and communications between different countries and different cultures.

In 1999, after serving in a state-owned enterprise of Shandong Metal and Mineral Import and Export Corporation for nine years, Jason set up his first private company of Qingdao D&L Group, Ltd., and began his exploration of the international markets in the industry of building, mining, automotive and agriculture.

Over the past 20 years, he has conducted business in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and South America.

In January of 2002, Jason established Qingdao DongLu Technology Co., Ltd., and began his manufacturing career.

With more than 16 years of engineering and management experience in upgraded technology and state-of-art manufacturing equipment, he leads his team in becoming the top supplier of the world market in specific industries.

In addition to the business in China, Jason also set up companies in United States and United Kingdom in 2013 and 2015, respectively, thereby promoting the globalization of the business.

Cara is currently the senior human resources leader for GE Finance.

In her current role, she is responsible for providing strategic HR leadership to GE’s CFO and to the global finance function of more than 13,000 employees worldwide. Cara and her team are responsible for providing all areas of human resources including coaching, organization structure, succession planning, pipeline development, recruitment, employee relations, and compensation.

Jason has been actively participating in serving his local communities. He has donated to schools and villages in China for years in order to improve the local education and living standard. In 2018, he established the Ding Foundation in Boston and will continue his work of serving society and his community.

Throughout Cara’s 15-year career, she has held a variety of HR leadership positions in GE Corporate, Capital, Power, and Digital including roles supporting global tax, finance, business development, supply chain, digital, and commercial. She began her career in finance as part of GE’s Financial Management Program (FMP).

Jason’s elder son, Haoxuan (Samuel) Ding , graduated from Portsmouth Abbey School in 2018 and is now enrolled in the Boston College Carroll School of Management.

A native of Rhode Island, Cara is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross.

She currently resides in Hingham, MA, with her husband, Jordan, and children, Caroline, Andrea and Jack.

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The Portsmouth Priory Monastic Community circa 1946

As the Monastery of St. Gregory the Great and Our Lady, Queen of Peace, nears its 100th anniversary, the monastic community celebrates its partnership with St. Louis Abbey and the revitalization that has seen a profession of simple vows within the last few months and the addition of monks to the School faculty. While we look forward to an era of growth and renewal with optimism and joy, let us also look back in appreciation of the devotion and dedication that built this great institution.

The following are excerpts from previously published articles by monks and friends of Portsmouth Priory and Abbey.

PAGE 10

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Scholars in our Monastery

by Dom Julian Stead, O.S.B. ’43 Reprinted from the Portsmouth Abbey School Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Booklet

What is a monk and what is a scholar? The dictionary says

Rev. John Hugh Diman, O.S.B. (1863-1949)

that a monk “originally was a man who retired from the world and devoted himself to asceticism as a solitary or cenobite,” (cenobites being monks who live in common); “now, specifically, a member of a religious order, as the Benedictines or Cistercians,” (who follow the Rule of St. Benedict) “devoted primarily to contemplation and solemn liturgical observances.

They are cloistered and carry on all their activities within the limits of a monastic establishment.” Like all religious orders, they give up private property, family, and their own will (generally summed up as taking vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, although these are not literally the vows in the Rule of St. Benedict). In this article I am taking the dictionary’s definition of “scholar” as “one who has engaged in advanced study and acquired knowledge in some special field.”

Unlike the Dominicans and Jesuits, scholarship is not expected of many Benedictines. The activity of many Benedictine monasteries has been missionary work or some form of manual work such as agriculture, as well as operating colleges, or seminaries. Larger monasteries engage in more than one of these activities, depending on the needs of the people and on the talents of the monks. Whatever the monastic community’s specific work may be, individual monks usually have talents they can exercise, as a way of enriching their personal lives, serving God or helping people. For its first thirty years, it was uncertain which type of work Portsmouth would focus on, until it was decided that the Abbey’s activity would be the education of youth preparing for college, requiring most monks to have advanced degrees in some special field. This article singles out especially those monks at Portsmouth who have made a name for themselves and for the Abbey beyond the school and monastery.

sixteen of us displaced from English schools. In those days, students were being prepared primarily not for college but for death. It was expected that after graduation we would be going into the military. Only after Dom Leo Van Winkle became headmaster in 1957 did I become aware of a new goal. What he desired for the students was “success,” via his alma mater Yale, or a reasonable equivalent. Ed Garesche, who was from St. Louis and at the top of the class in 1942, once remarked to a classmate, “What’s the use of all this? We are just going to be cannon fodder.” That was sadly prophetic, as he was shot crossing a river in Germany in the last days of the war.

So it did not seem strange in those days for one to enter the monastery; you might as well give your life to God as to your

When I came here as a student in January of 1940, there was

country. Barney Wall ’36 was the first; Ed Monmonier of the

a war on. Only ninety boys were enrolled in the School, with

same class entered St. Anselm’s in Washington, where he be-

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Rev. Henry Leonard Sargent, O.S.B. (1957-1944) of English as well as of spiritual and monastic literature, and a master’s degree in classics from Trinity College in Hartford.

Dom Richard was born in Michigan, studied in Paris, was an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Durham, England before being received into the Catholic Church at Belmont Abbey, Hereford. He was Subprior at Portsmouth under Dom Hugh Diman and Dom Gregory Borgstedt, taught modern languages, and was housemaster of St. Benet’s for a year or two.

Dom Leonard Sargent ought to be mentioned, as the founder of the monastery. After graduating from Harvard, he became an Anglican monk and Superior of his monastery. But in his fifties he converted to Catholocism, and became a monk of Downside Abbey in Great Britain with a view to founding a monastery of the English Benedictine Congregation in New England. He was fondly remembered at Downside to the end of the twentieth century. He was very much in evidence at Portsmouth in my school days, and I was rather a favorite of came headmaster, as Barney (Dom Aelred Wall) did here. Up

his because I had been in Downside’s junior school. He knew

to the Class of ’57, nine others became monks of Portsmouth.

well most of the monks who taught me there, and even one

Dom Leo Van Winkle was one.

of the boys my age.

Of course Dom Hugh Diman, the founding headmaster, was greatly respected. In the early years, Portsmouth was widely known as “Father Diman’s school.” He was in his seventies then, and roomed a little remotely in the monastery as prior. Even if we did not know him very well personally, he knew all of us, and was very much on top of things. Since he did not engage in research or publish anything, he was not a “scholar” in the narrower sense, nor were Dom Aelred Wall or Dom Leo, thought Dom Leo had a Ph.D. from Yale in chemical engineering; he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and developed the system for clean air submarines. The only other monks of Portsmouth who have earned a Ph.D. are Dom Matthew Stark, an honorary doctorate in English Literature from Saint Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, and Dom Francis Crowley, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Providence College, and joined the monastery in the 1990s. Dom Matthew Stark is definitely a scholar, though unpublished. Despite twenty-four years ruling as Abbot while actively teaching, he has acquired vast knowledge

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Rev. Dom Leo van Winkle on the cover of the 1984 Fall School Bulletin

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Rt. Rev. Dom Ansgar Nelson, Bishop of Stockholm, Sweden, 1958 Dom Leonard was known by many here as “the Ancient Mariner,” due to his habit of standing in the Manor House hall (the center of the school in those days) with his “glittering eye,” to stop boys for conversation as they were coming through.

There was more visiting between students and monks in those days. Each monk had his own signal on the bell at the front entrance of the monastery.

DOM WILFRID BAYNE Dom Wilfrid acquired an international reputation as a genealogist and herald. He designed armorial bearings professionally, not only for the abbeys and bishops, but also for the Navy, for businesses, and for the Newport Bridge. A convert to Catholicism, Dom Wilfrid had had an unusual life as a professional artist and ballet dancer. He had to abandon that career when he contracted arthritis, though not before he had danced with Pavlova. Other alumni say that he wrote very interesting memoirs; unfortunately they have been lost. I am sure they were not among the books of genealogy and coats of arms which he bequeathed to the Virginia Historical Society.

DOM ANSGAR NELSON It was a tremendous loss to Portsmouth when Rome appointed Dom Ansgar Catholic Bishop of Sweden in 1947. After emigrating from Denmark at age twenty-one and becoming a Catholic, he had joined the monastery at Portsmouth. He was a great scholar, not only in classics, modern languages, and Hebrew, but also in botany, about which he tried to teach me when we took walks down around the pond. After his novitiate at Fort Augustus he studied philosophy at the Abbey of Maria Laach in Germany. In the nineteen forties he took a master’s degree in classics at Brown. He (and Dom Wilfrid also) studied Greek with Dr. Schehl, an exiled Austrian university professor, who was head of our classics department during the war years. While at Brown, because of his interest in the Holy Scripture, Dom Ansgar studied Hebrew under Rabbi Braude in Providence. As Bishop, he was to enjoy very friendly relations with rabbis in Stockholm, who were much impressed by his learning in Hebrew studies. When Bishop Ansgar returned to Portsmouth in 1967, he taught philosophy to a student or two.

Rev. Dom Luke Childs ’57 (left) with Rev. Dom Wilfrid Bayne, 1972

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The Very Rev. Dom Aelred Graham, Prior of Portsmouth Priory, 1951-1967, author, lecturer, retreat master, 1962 DOM DAVID HURST Our scholar most widely known beyond the horizons of North America is Dom David, recognized for his work on the critical editions of the Latin works of the Venerable Bede, and for their translation into English.

The Venerable Bede is the only Doctor of the Church who was English. According to Dr. Schehl, Bede was one of the world’s greatest geniuses. He wrote on contemporary science, commentaries on books of the Old Testament, the Gospels of Mark and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse, the seven “Catholic Epistles” – in other words on most of the New Testament, as well as many homilies and some hymns and poetry.

His most popular work today is in his History of the Anglo-Saxon People. This is probably the only work of his you will find outside of university, seminary, or monastery libraries. He was widely read and venerated in the Latin-speaking Europe of his own time. Because he was still living they could not call him Saint or Blessed, so they called him Venerable, and the name stuck. He died c.735, in the north of England where he

comparing the manuscripts which were copied about a thou-

was born and lived as a monk. He never traveled abroad, even

sand years ago (all containing some minor differences since

within the British Isles.

they were copied by hand) in order to establish the exact wording of the original. To students of Scripture, the Fathers,

Dom David’s critical editions of Bede’s Latin works are vol-

or ancient classics, this delicate work is highly important. It

umes 119-122 of the Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (the

requires patience and expertise not only in the original lan-

Latin series of the Body of Christian Writings). Establishing

guage (Latin in this case) but also knowledge of paleography,

the critical (i.e. definitive) text of ancient writings means

i.e. ancient scripts. For Dom David this also entailed journeying into the remains of civilization, with the credentials necessary for admittance into the libraries of Europe to view the closely guarded manuscripts. Dom David traveled to the Vatican, Rome, Bologna, Turin, Naples, and Florence in Italy; to Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and London in England; to Paris, Amiens, and Rheims in France; to Trier, Stuttgart, and Munich in Germany; to Vienna, and Zurich.

Dom David has also published an English translation of the Homilies of St. Gregory the Great, a monk and pope who lived a hundred years before the Venerable Bede, and is the patron saint of our abbey. To mark the fifteen hundredth anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict, Dom David was one of a group of Benedictine scholars from North and Central America who collaborated in the production of RB 1980, the Rule of St.

Rev. Dom David Hurst with Tom Healey’60 and his wife, Meg, 1976

PAGE 14

Benedict in Latin and English with Notes.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

DOM AELRED GRAHAM, AMPLEFORTH ABBEY’S GIFT

pursuing the truth freely, and to show that there can be no

TO PORTSMOUTH PRIORY

contradiction between the two. On the other hand, he had

When Dom Gregory Borgstedt resigned in 1951, Portsmouth needed a new Prior, and Ampleforth sent us Dom Aelred.

Aelred Graham had been educated at a Jesuit school in Liverpool, which was atypical of Ampleforth monks who were

a puckish sense of humor which could give the impression that he was not altogether serious or reverent. This might be deemed an English trait, typified by Chesterton who said, “I am never more serious than when I’m joking.”

mostly alumni of their own school. He took a degree in theol-

Dom Aelred’s book Conversations Christian and Buddhist: Encoun-

ogy from the Dominicans at Blackfriars, Oxford, and a fellow

ters in Japan, a sort of transcript of his dialogue with Buddhists,

student of his said that his early books, written before he came

was published in 1968. His conversations were not restricted

to Portsmouth, The Love of God and The Christ of Catholicism,

to Japan, however. He visited Thailand and India, where he

were based on the lectures he attended at Blackfriars. The Final

met with the Dalai Lama. They became great friends. He tells

Victory, published in 1943, expressed his hopes for post-War

of their meetings in his autobiography, The End of Religion: Au-

Britain, and could be simplistically summed up as advocating

tobiographical Explorations (1971). Dom Aelred had a gift for

the program of the Labor Party. He suffered personally from

the eye-catching titles; the use of the word “end” in this title is

the war when his mother was killed in the bombing of Liver-

in the sense of “final purpose.” When he was dying at Ample-

pool. His political views were left-wing, though he modified

forth in 1984, the Dalai Lama made a special farewell visit to

them somewhat in the course of time. He liked controversy.

embrace him.

Shortly after his arrival at Portsmouth, he wrote a critique of

Aelred Graham’s legacy is summed up in his book Contemplative

Thomas Merton at the invitation of the Atlantic Monthly. At

Christianity, published in 1974, looking forward to the imple-

the invitation of the editor of The Pilot, the Boston archdioc-

mentation of Vatican II. “If we are to renew our youth,” he

esan weekly, he wrote a criticism of the Catholic press. Both

wrote, “an experience of awakening, a sense that we are chil-

of these were highly controversial, and did not endear him to the local chancery office. In the Providence Visitor he retracted some of his remarks about the Catholic press, with a gentlemanly apology. Then, in 1958, he published Christian Thought and Action: the Role of Catholicism in our Time, which was neither controversial nor particularly original.

Soon after, he became interested in Zen Buddhism, mostly through a Bostonian friend of Dom Hilary Martin, and in 1963 published Zen Catholicism, where he began to express very original thoughts and experience.

When he retired from Portsmouth, he made a trip to the Far East, armed with a letter of recommendation from the Vatican. He had an audience with Paul VI, approving of his dialogue with Buddhists. This gave him semi-official status as a representative of Catholicism, which was needed, since whether in conversation or in his printed works, one sometimes wondered whether he was a rationalistic Buddhist or a thomistic Lancashire Catholic (Lancashire being a stronghold of conservative English Catholicism). He was a free spirit, and it was his intention to be faithful to Catholic orthodoxy while

Rev. Dom Hilary Martin in the Zen Garden, 1962

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PAGE 15

Rev. Dom Paschal Scotti, 2015 dren of God needs to be prayed for, with

peoples, an objective Blessed Pope

the mind receptive, the heart compas-

John XXIII gave the Church with his

sionately open.” He continued to sug-

encyclical “Pacem in Terris,” and with

gest that, “a question that can profitably

the Second Vatican Council. Aelred

preoccupy the mind of today’s Christian

Graham seemed to have been hon-

is, in what degree the God-centered con-

ored with a vocation to undertake a

sciousness of Jesus is attainable by us.

significant part of this heaven-sent

This is what Christianity is all about. We

responsibility.

need to become involved more in a consideration of the religion of Jesus than of

NOW AND BEYOND

the religion about Jesus.” He called faith

At present, Dom Paschal Scotti is

the “beatifying knowledge” from which

the Abbey’s emerging scholar. He is

knowledge of the Creator begins to de-

preparing a book on Wilfrid Ward

velop in an openness and trusting atti-

(1856-1916), an English Catholic

tude towards reality. “We are always in

historian, apologist, and journalist,

need of being further enlightened, not

and has published an article on him

by flight from the realities of the human

in the Downside Review. In the sum-

condition, but rather by a confrontation with them…Religion is concerned with a reality beyond the reach of physical science and academic philosophy.” He believed that we can only be enlightened in the present moment; the only place we can commune with God is here and the only time we can do so is now. “What actually happened in

mer of 2000 he journeyed to the UK to do research into the papers of Wilfrid Ward, preserved mainly at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland. He has also written the article on the Catholic Church in Rhode Island for the New Catholic Encyclopedia.

the world of space and time can be immense significance, if it is

The present writer has too scanty an education to be correctly

a means whereby men are delivered from selfishness and attain

called anything but a dilettante, but I have published a book

a state of being beyond the temporal order.” Dom Aelred had

of verse, a translation of a short work by the 7th century St.

much to say about ways that Christianity can contribute to the

Maximum the Confessor, and some articles in Word and Spirit,

peace and unity of mankind. “How we treat those we come in

the Downside Review, and the Patristic and Byzantine Review; I also

contact with is the test of our attitude to God…Religion’s aim is

edited an anthology on the Rule of St. Benedict, and collabo-

to bring about a situation in which people are not strangers to

rated with others on translating the contemporary Italian author

one another or at odds with themselves.”

Chiara Lubich.

In summing up Dom Aelred’s life work, there is no doubt that

Readers of this article will be disappointed if they are curious to

his intimate acquaintance with Buddhists and their thought

know what one can predict about the future of scholarship in

enriched him both personally and intellectually, but it also con-

the Abbey’s monastic community. I have lived long enough to

tributed to opening up a rapprochement between the Catholic

have learned that it is unwise to claim to foresee the future, wis-

Church and this great world religion. Scholarship in the field

er to leave it to divine providence. It is safe to paraphrase Aelred

of the Church Fathers, Scripture, and history is more typical of

Graham, and say that what has actually happened and is hap-

the Benedictine charism, which includes preserving the spirit

pening, in the space and time of Portsmouth Abbey’s scholars,

and thought of the early Christians. But Catholic monks like

has been significant. So much has been achieved by relatively

Dom Aelred are in a unique position to achieve mutual respect

few – few in number, but not in proportion to the total comple-

and understanding with monks in the Buddhist tradition, and

ment of the Abbey. Hopefully this scholarship has been a means

to help religion contribute to peace and harmony between all

for both the scholars and their students of being “delivered from

PAGE 16

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

MO NKS PRO FESSED FOR P ORTSMOUTH selfishness and attaining a state of being beyond the temporal

Dom Leonard Sargent 1915

order.” We shall have to wait to find out. But if history repeats

Dom Benedict Brosnahan 1918

itself, there will be more to come.

Editor’s Note: Father Julian was correct in his summation. Since this article was written in 2001, Dom Paschal Scotti published his scholarly book on Dom Wilfrid Bayne as well as a recent book on the Galileo Affair, which is receiving rave reviews: Galileo Revisited, The Galileo Affair in Context (ISBN/UPC: 9781621641322). Rev. Joseph Koterski, S.J., of the Department of Philosophy at Fordham University writes, “This book brings to bear the many new discoveries that have recently been made in the Galileo Affair. An open-minded reader will

Dom Hugh Diman 1924 Dom Gregory Borgstedt 1928 Dom Dunstan Penley 1932 Dom Wilfrid Bayne 1932 Dom Richard Flower 1933 Dom Placid Cormey 1933 Dom Lawrence McGann 1933 Dom Joseph Woods 1933 Dom Ansgar Nelson (FA) 1935

have abundant evidence for debunking the notion that the Church is

Dom Hilary Martin 1940

against science.” Publisher St. Ignatius Press notes, “No other work

Dom Bede Gorman 1941

on Galileo Galilei has brought together such a complete description of

Dom Alban Baer 1941

the historical context in its political, cultural, philosophical, religious,

Dom Peter Sidler 1942

scientific, and personal aspects as this volume has done. In addition to

Dom Andrew Jenks 1942

covering the whole of Galileo’s life, it focuses on those things that are

Dom David Hurst 1942

most pertinent to the Galileo Affair, which culminated in his condem-

Dom Aelred Wall 1943

nation by the Inquisition in 1633.”

Dom John Mason 1943 Dom Julian Stead 1945 Dom Benedict Lang 1948 Dom Philip Wilson 1948 Dom Maurus Fleming 1949 Dom Stephen Collins 1950 Dom Thomas Liggett 1951 Dom Leo van Winkle 1951 Dom Damian Kearney 1951 Dom Michael Stafford 1953 Dom Geoffrey Chase 1953 Dom Christopher Davis 1953 Dom Matthew Stark 1957 Dom Ambrose Wolverton 1959 Dom Anselm Hufstader 1961 Dom Gregory Floyd 1962 Dom Luke Childs 1962 Dom Paul McDonald 1965

Dom Julian came to Portsmouth as a student in January 1940, and joined the monastery in September 1943. After theological studies at the Benedictine college in Rome, from which he received the degree of Licentiate on Sacred Theology, and at the Dominican college in Oxford, he began teaching in the Abbey School in 1952. He currently resides at St. Clare – Newport.

Dom Caedmon Holmes 1969 Dom Mark Serna 1981 Dom Edmund Adams 1984 Dom Paschal Scotti 1985 Dom Joseph Byron 1989 Dom Francis Crowley 1994 Dom Gregory Havill 2006 Dom Benedict Maria 2018 PAGE 17

On Meditation

by Dom Aelred Graham, O.S.B. An address to the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A., 10 November 1965.

How is one to approach, before an audience such as this, the subject of Meditation? One might devote the limited time at our disposal to recalling what some of the saints and masters of the spiritual life have said on the topic — but that could be to turn out a very sketchy anthology of familiar texts. Or one might attempt a brief theological analysis, with a view to elucidating some of the principles that underlie religious meditation — but this could prove to be too abstract and rather boring. Or, again, one might launch into an exhortation on the importance of the practice — but this would surely be somewhat oppressive to listen to, besides being in other respects out of place.

PAGE 18

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Instead, I propose to speak about meditation in the experience

Certain convictions, however, did begin to take shape in his mind

of one particular individual, as this is the area I feel least incom-

in those early years of Benedictine life. One conviction was that

petent about. If I refer to him in the third person, that is not

being attentive in church was not enough; that was desirable – but

intended to deceive anyone – only to provide a thin covering of

more important was the need to be recollected and generally

respectability to a piece of egotistical exhibitionism.

aware outside church: in one’s dealings with people and situations

Take, then, a young man who entered a Benedictine monastery at the age of 23. Brought up all his life in the Roman Catholic faith, he had not been consistently pious (rather the reverse), nor had he up to that age, or since, undergone anything that might be described as a spectacular religious experience or personal conversion. However, from the age of 20, while still “in the world” (as we say), he came under Jesuit influence and was much affected by the meditation system of St. Ignatius Loyola. This led to a period

around one. Another conviction was the importance of solitude, to have resources within oneself so that one could be happy alone.

Also it seemed to him that recollectedness and fruitful solitude in some way were linked with meditation. If one failed to meditate the mind would dissipate itself and one could never experience even the beginnings of what Plotinus (for he had read Plotinus, in a sort of way, at an early stage) calls – ”the flight of the alone to the Alone.”

of considerable personal austerity: hair shirts, fastings, disciplines

Coming to the study of theology, with the Dominicans at Ox-

and the like: which together produced, or seemed to produce, a

ford, he made further discoveries. The Summa Theologica, besides

highly conscious devotion to the person of our Lord in his sacred

providing a magnificent doctrinal framework, seemed to convey

humanity. It produced also a desire to be virtuous and to engage

two incidental lessons bearing upon religious meditation. One

in some apostolic work for the spread of God’s kingdom.

lesson was – the inadequacy of verbal statements either to express

Looking back on that period from the sophisticated level of later years, our non-hero was grateful for the insights gained, but became persuaded that those insights were not sufficiently profound to sustain the deeper life of the spirit. This for two chief reasons: (i) the Ignatian method, in its subject matter, did not seem to engage the intellect: it remained within the sphere of the pictorial imagination – i.e., imaginative reconstructions of the life of our Lord etc.;

what is in the mind or to describe what lies outside it. The other lesson concerned the realism of credal statements: by this I mean, St. Thomas’s position that the act of faith is not simply an assent to a verbal proposition, but a movement of the mind to that to which the proposition relates. Thus, when we say, “Credo in unum Deum” (in with the accusative) – the mind, as it were, moves towards God in an act of vital apprehension.

(ii) the stress is on the will and effortless striving – without a pro-

When all this was linked with the Augustinian -Thomist psychol-

portionate mental illumination to elicit or direct that striving.

ogy bearing upon God’s indwelling within the soul: the imma-

However, he would still say that most young men – particularly those who find their emotions and passions getting out of hand – could probably profit, at some stage in their spiritual careers, from a judiciously administered dose of Ignatian spirituality.

nent presence of the Holy Trinity within the human spirit – our student gained a deeper insight into the rewarding possibilities of meditation. One had only to make purified acts of faith and love to be in direct, though obscure, contact with God. By sanctifying grace, according to Thomas, the soul is equipped with the theo-

On entering the monastery he found the atmosphere quite dif-

logical virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Granted sufficient

ferent – with a strong, perhaps unreasonably strong, anti-Ignatian

fidelity, then, one could experience something of the Divine.

bias. The type of spirituality aimed at being corporate rather than

With the presumptuousness of youth, this particular student be-

individual, it was centered on the Mass and the Divine Office

gan to fancy that he knew what St. Thomas meant when he spoke

in choir. But always there was required at least one half hour’s

of his own theological Summa being so much “straw” compared

mental prayer or meditation each day. Not much definite instruc-

to what he had seen in vision.

tion was given about this. One found oneself toying with a verse from the Psalms or the New Testament, a saying of St. John of the Cross, an aspiration from Father Augustine Baker – or else, more than likely, just falling asleep.

The cautionary lesson here appeared to be that there is a heady intellectualism, even in divinity, which needs to be corrected by an awareness of the creature’s nothingness before God – and by

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PAGE 19

the realization that the test of a Christian is not the heights of

not had the slightest weakening effect on the traditional spiritual-

contemplative prayer as he may suppose himself to have reached,

ity, as I have learnt it, of Catholicism.

but the degree of his non-self-righteousness, and of his charity and compassion towards those around him.

Buddhism accepts as the basic fact of life the omnipresence of suffering, in the sense of frustration. We live in a vale of tears. Things

A book which had an enormous effect on him at that time was

never go right for long. We are faced with death – eventually our

the famous 14th century spiritual treatise, The Cloud of Un-

own, but continuously other peoples – with sickness, ill-health,

knowing. The doctrine in that work, which still lingers in his

poverty, or just those every-day hour-by-hour setbacks and annoy-

mind, is the extreme simplicity to which private prayer may be

ances of being in uncongenial company, having unsuitable work,

reduced – perhaps to no more than the mental utterance of the

living with disagreeable people – or, at the subjective level, living

single word: God, or Jesus. The Cloud holds out as a goal, which

with our own depressions, guilt feelings and general sense of inad-

still seems to him realistic if as yet far from being attained, the

equacy.

possibility of being aware of “Ultimate Reality” by way of an almost continuous state. (I quote from Chapter 71 of the Cloud):

Now nothing that we do can make these experiences other than they are, but what tends to make them intolerable is what Gua-

…there are some who by grace are so sensitive spiritually and so at

tama denotes as “craving” – “craving accompanied by delight and

home with God in this grace of contemplation that they may have

greed, seeking its delight now here, now there; i.e., craving for sen-

it when they like and under normal spiritual working conditions,

suous experience, craving to perpetuate oneself, craving for extinc-

whether they are sitting, walking, standing, kneeling. And at these

tion.” The source of this trouble, be it noted, the very heart of hu-

times they are in full control of their faculties, both physical and

man distress, is not the thing craved for – sensuous experience, for

spiritual, and can use them if they wish…

example – but the craving itself. A person may and should enjoy himself in the appropriate context; where he goes wrong is when

What seem to me of great interest to Christians are the Buddhist insight and manner of meditation.

he is possessed by an obsessive longing for such enjoyment.

The way to deal with this problem, according to Buddhism, is to get rid of (or be relieved from) the craving – ”the withdrawal from it, the renouncing of it, liberation from it, non-attachment to it.”

Parallel to his preoccupation with Christian theology and his at-

To achieve this state of liberation (which is enlightenment, Bud-

tempts at mental prayer, our monastic student has been taking an

dhahood) is the point and purpose of human existence: it implies

amateur’s interest in the spirituality stemming from India, espe-

an ethical way of life, and specifically for Buddhism – the holy (or

cially Buddhism. (And at this point I propose to drop the perhaps

noble) eightfold path, consisting in “right views, right intentions,

irritating allusive device and switch to the first person singular.)

right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right

Of the institutional and ritualistic aspects of Buddhism I am not

mindfulness, right concentration.”

qualified to speak. What seem to me of great interest to Christians are the Buddhist insight and manner of meditation. By the Buddhist insight I mean roughly what is indicated in Gautama’s Holy Truths, and by meditation I mean the kind of physical and mental discipline practised by Zen Buddhists.

But to lead the appropriate kind of life, we need the appropriate thoughts, or more accurately, the appropriate attitude of mind or spirit. The proximate means for bringing this about is by meditation. And from this point I shall speak of meditation, not in a specifically Buddhist sense, but in a way that is equally applicable to

In the few brief remarks I shall make on this subject, I don’t pro-

Christians – those Christians, at least, who are concerned with the

pose at every stage, or indeed at any stage, to establish the obvious

spiritual life at its deepest or maturest level.

parallels (as they appear to me) with Christianity. Suffice it to say that I think those parallels are incontestable, and that my (admittedly very limited) contacts with Buddhism and Buddhists, which have always been sympathetic and often almost reverential, have

PAGE 20

When discussing meditation, we commonly think of meditating on or about something. We have a theme for our meditation. This makes sense as giving a focus to our minds. But whatever theme

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

most impossible. As soon as we strive to think about nothing, that too becomes a thing (perhaps an image of a circle, or an empty hole), and we are as badly off as ever. What we can do, though, if we are sufficiently alert, is not to cling to any thought – to let all thoughts flow by, detach ourselves from them, so allowing them to fade away into nothingness from lack of attention.

Someone may be tempted to ask – what has all this to do with religion? The answer is, a great deal. Paul Tillich has pointed out (truly, I think) that “Religion is not a special function of man’s spiritual life, but it is the dimension of depth in all of its functions”. Again, it has been well said that the only secular thing on earth is the secular heart of man. When we are not reminiscing vainly about the past, or gazing hopefully into the future, but facing present reality – of which, as T. S. Eliot observed, we cannot bear too much – our attitude cannot but be in some way religious: we choose, even the most exalted, we usually find that it turns out to be rather banal, and that it cannot hold our attention. So we become distracted, our mind wanders, we day-dream – which is a form of wishful thinking, of craving therefore – and meditation becomes as frustrating as, perhaps more frustrating than, any of our normal every-day activities.

because our mind is then in touch, however obscurely, with the Source of our being. Be it remembered that we cannot, strictly speaking, think about God; we can only think about an idea of God in our minds, or a picture of God in our imagination – and neither the idea nor the image is God, or even a remotely adequate representation of God. “What God actually is always remains hidden from us,” writes St. Thomas Aquinas (in his De

Here I would suggest that the fine point of meditation is not to

Veritate). “And this is the highest knowledge we can have of God

think about something, however edifying, but just to be some-

in this life, that we know him to be above every thought we are

thing – in this case to be our true selves. Whenever we are doing

able to think of him.”

anything that requires external action – necessary as it is that we should be concerned with external activity almost all day long – we are never quite our true selves. We are actors, doers, assuming some necessary role or other, though it could be a highly virtuous, even an heroic role.

Aquinas uses the spatial metaphor of God being “above” our thought. It is, of course, the sense of God’s “aboveness” or “otherness” which colours a great deal of Christian spirituality. God is transcendent. But no less Christian is the sense of God’s nearness, His immanence, God’s indwelling within man’s spirit. Listen to St.

Yet at times we need just to be ourselves – for it is only when a

Augustine commenting on St. John: (In Joan Evangel., xxiii, 10):

man’s actions flow out, so to speak, from his true being that they

“Recognize in thyself something within, within thyself. Leave thou

make acceptable sense. It is commonly admitted, I think, that we

abroad both thy clothing and thy flesh; descend into thyself: go to

are our best selves when we are wide awake and aware. Not self-

thy secret chamber, thy mind. If thou be far from thine own self,

consciously aware, in an egoistic self-preoccupied sense, but in so

how canst thou draw near to God? For not in the body but in the

far as our consciousness is actualized – ”existentially” (to use a cur-

mind was man made in the image of God. In his own similitude

rent phrase) – so that in some quite indefinable way our being and

let us seek God: in his own image recognize the Creator.” Some-

our knowledge merge. Momentarily freed from distractions – we

thing of what Augustine says here, I believe, may be realized in the

just are.

quiet of meditation. And this leads naturally for me to say a word

To achieve this condition implies, not that we should think about something, but rather that we should think about nothing (nothing). However, our minds being what they are, this seems al-

about bodily posture during meditation. The kneeling position, so natural to Christians, is, one might say, the physical response to God’s transcendence. We kneel in suppliancy before our Creator.

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Yet the Divine indwelling has also

spiritually by such exercises. But the most rewarding experience of

its appropriate response; – and this

all in this respect, incidentally, has been with a small group of Prep

seems to be the sitting posture

school youngsters – who have come along entirely on their own voli-

associated with the forms of medi-

tion – and sat in what has been called Zen Catholic meditation for

tation deriving from India.

half an hour of their own time every Sunday evening.

Anyone, not least a believing

Let me conclude by making the point that in this short address

Catholic Christian, who has

nothing is being advocated. I am not in any sense a man with a

learned to sit, with body upright,

message. The matters I have touched on seem to me of great im-

the eyes downcast though not

portance; but in the case I know, or think I know best, I’m not sure

closed, the limbs folded into the

that these practices have brought much improvement in the one

center, the breathing so slow and regular as to be hardly percep-

sphere that counts – that comprised by insight, humility, charity and

tible, will testify to a remarkable heightening of consciousness.

compassion. The most that can be said is that there has been engen-

Mentally, one seems in an indescribable way to be in touch with

dered a keen sense of the need for these qualities and an aspiration

the Ultimate – and for anyone brought up in the Christian tradi-

towards them.

tion, such periods of meditation, even though practiced with Buddhists (as has been my privilege from time to time) – the Ultimate, in so far as it tends to be mentally formulated, is always in terms of the God manifested in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps, before concluding, I should say a word on the subject of Yoga. Yoga, as we know, means union, and in itself has little to do with bodily posture. Nevertheless, there are certain simple

Be it remembered that we cannot, strictly speaking, think about God; we can only think about an idea of God in our minds, or a picture of God in our imagination – and neither the idea nor the image is God, or even a remotely adequate representation of God.

exercises of hatha yoga which many people, including myself, have found of great benefit. We are coming more and more to realize the closeness of the union between body and spirit. It is therefore to be expected that more attention should be given to the kind of physical discipline which has proved itself, through many centu-

Everything lies, it seems to me, in compassionate insight. We live at a time when “ecumenism” of a sort has become fashionable; but we all know that something more is required than the camaraderie

ries, to harmonize with, possibly even to promote, deep spirituality.

of interdenominational dialogue. To a realistic eye it might appear

As I am addressing members of a religious Community, perhaps

there still remain, standing as solidly as ever, the age-old impedi-

a word should be said about the practical side of all this – the

ments of hereditary and ethnical prejudices, together with corporate

more so as I have some responsibility for a religious Community

ecclesiastical vested interests, effectively blocking any effort to re-

myself. First, I would say that this is a field where respect for in-

unite what is left of Christendom. In any case, is the right approach

dividual liberty of spirit is paramount. No one should be obliged

really at the organizational level, the meeting of hierarch with

to meditational practices with which they are out of sympathy

hierarch, the search for mutual understanding with respect to doc-

or to which they feel no particular calling. Thus I have never

trine, the finding of the comprehensive formula? If we can reach the

spoken about these matters – even to the limited extent that I am

deeper level of an ecumenism of the spirit, we shall not expect dif-

doing here – in the weekly conference I give to my own Com-

ferences of Church organization and doctrinal formulations to dis-

munity. One or two of the younger members have come of their

appear. We shall find, perhaps, that they do not matter very much.

that, beneath the surface of friendly gestures and manifest good will,

accord to ask me to show them what I do – and of course one is glad to oblige. Similarly, when one gives retreats to other Com-

Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 1, No.1. © World Wisdom, Inc.

munities there are usually a few who feel that they might profit

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God’s Workshop From the Shaping Holy Lives’ Conference on Benedictine Spirituality Holy Trinity Wall Street, New York

v

Tuesday 29 April 2003

by Dr. Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England, December 2002 – December 2012.

B

enedict is, as usual, uncompromisingly prosaic in describing the monastic community as a workshop; it’s a place in which we use specific tools – listed with blunt simplicity in Chapter 4 of the Rule – which are lent to us by Christ, to be returned on the Last Day, when we receive our wages. It’s an imagery that conjures up a landscape in monochrome, a grey sky, a stone wall: the tools worn smooth with long use and skillfully patched over time, taken from the shelf each morning until finally hung up when weariness and age arrive. The holy life is one in which we learn to handle things in businesslike and unselfconscious ways, to ‘handle’ the control of the tongue, the habit of not passing on blame, getting up in the morning and not gossiping. A monastic lifetime is one in which these habits are fitted to our hands. Simone Weil wrote somewhere about how the tool is for the seasoned worker the extension of the hand, not something alien.

Benedict’s metaphors prompt us to think of a holiness that is like that, an ‘extension’ of our bodies and our words that we’ve come not to notice. In a recent essay on Benedictine holiness, Professor Henry Mayr-Harting describes it as ‘completely undemonstrative, deeply conventual, and lacking any system of expertise’ (Holiness, Past and Present, ed. Stephen Barton, London/New York 2003, p.261). Very broadly, that is the

picture I want to develop with reference to this early and potent image of the workshop and its tools – though I might, while fully understanding the point about expertise, want to think about what sorts of communicable wisdom it also embodies. At this stage, though, perhaps the most important thing to emphasize is the ‘deeply conventual’: the holiness envisaged by the Rule is entirely inseparable from the common life. The tools of the work are bound up with the proximity of other people – and the same other people. As Benedict says at the end of Chapter 4, the workshop is itself the stability of the community. Or, to pick up our earlier language, it is the unavoidable nearness of these others that becomes an extension of ourselves. One of the things we have to grow into unselfconsciousness about is the steady environment of others.

To put it a bit differently, the promise to love in stability is the most drastic way imaginable of recognizing the otherness of others – just as in marriage. If the other person is there, ultimately, on sufferance or on condition, it there is a time-expiry dimension to our relations with particular others, we put a limit on the amount of otherness we can manage. Beyond a certain point, we reserve the right to say that our terms must prevail after all. Stability or marital fidelity or any seriously covenanted relation to person or community resigns that long-stop possibility – which is why it feels so dangerous.

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At the very start, then, of thinking about Benedictine holiness, there stands a principle well worth applying to other settings, other relationships – not the least the Church itself. How often do we think about the holiness of the Church as bound up with a habitual acceptance of the otherness of others who have made the same commitment? And what does it feel like to image holiness as an unselfconscious getting used to others? The presence of the other as a tool worn smooth and grey in the hand? The prosaic settledness of some marriages, the ease of an old priest celebrating the Eucharist, the musician’s relation to a familiar instrument playing a familiar piece – these belong to the same family of experience as the kind of sanctity that Benedict evokes here; undemonstrative, as Mayr-Harting says, because there is nothing to prove.

The ‘tools of good works’ listed include the Golden Rule, several of the Ten Commandments and the corporal works of mercy (clothing the naked, visiting the sick, burying the dead, and so on); but the bulk of them have to do with virtues that can be seen as necessary for the maintenance of stability as a context for growth in holiness. It is as though Benedict were asking, ‘What does it take to develop people who can live stably together?’ He does not begin by commending stability, but by mapping out an environment where the long-term sameness of my company will not breed bitterness, cynicism and fear of openness with one another. If you have to spend a lifetime with the same people, it is easy to create a carapace of habitual response which belongs at the surface level, a set of standard reactions which do not leave you vulnerable. It is the exact opposite of the habitual acceptance of otherness that we were speaking about a little while back, though it can sometimes dangerously resemble it.

With a slightly artificial tidiness, we might see the practices Benedict commends for nurturing the stability of the workshop under three heads.

The monk must be transparent; the monk must be a peacemaker; the monk must be accountable. Let’s look at these in turn.

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Transparency: those who belong to a community such as Benedict describes are required ‘not to entertain deceit in their heart’ (24 in the list of ‘tools’), and, intriguingly, ‘not to give false peace (25); to acknowledge their own culpability in any situation of wrong (42-3 – a principle regularly stressed by the Desert Fathers); to be daily mindful of death (47); to deal without delay with evil thoughts, breaking them against the rock of Christ, and to make them known to the spiritual father (50-51 – again a familiar precept in the desert). These and other precepts suggest that one of the basic requirements of the life is honesty. First, honesty about yourself; it is necessary to know how to spot the chains of fantasy (which is exactly what ‘thoughts’, logismoi, meant for the Desert Fathers), to understand how deeply they are rooted in a weak and flawed will, and to make your soul inhospitable to untruth about yourself. Exposure of your fantasies to an experienced elder is an indispensable part of learning the skills of diagnosis here. In the background are the analyses of Evagrius and Cassian, pinpointing what simple boredom can do in a life where ordinary variety of scene and company is missing.

The mind becomes obsessional, self-enclosed, incapable of telling sense from nonsense; the reality of the other in its unyielding difference is avoided by retreat into the private world where your own preference rules unrestricted. Hence the stress on making thoughts known: it is a simple way of propping open the door of the psyche, a way of making incarnate the consciousness that God sees us with complete clarity in every situation (49).

To become in this way open to your own scrutiny, through the listening ministry of the trusted brother or sister, is to take the first step toward an awareness of the brother or sister that is not illusory or comforting. The recommendation against ‘false peace,’ I suspect, belongs in this context: one of the ways in which we can retreat into privacy is the refusal to admit genuine conflict, to seek for a resolution that leaves me feeling secure without ever engaging the roots of difference. If we are to become transparent, we must first confront the uncomfortable fact that we are not naturally and instantly at peace with all.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

This could of course read like a commendation of the attitude which declines reconciliation until justice (to me) has been fully done; but I don’t think that is what Benedict is thinking of. The recommendation follows two precepts about anger and resentment (22,23), which, taken together with the warning against false peace, suggest that being wary of facile reconciliation is not about a suspicion of whether the other has adequately made reparation but about whether I have fully acknowledged and dealt with my own resentment. It is a hesitation over my honesty about peace, not the other’s acceptability.

71. To make peace with one’s enemy before the sun sets 72. And never to despair of the mercy of God

Stability requires this daily discipline of mending; it is the opposite of an atmosphere in which one’s place always has to be fought for, where influence and hierarchy are a matter of unceasing struggle. As Professor Mayr-Harting notes, the idea that position in the community depends on seniority (Ch. 63) may seem banal to us now, but it was a most unusual way of understanding hierarchy in late antiquity. It seems obvious because the Rule has had such a sustained impact on the institutions of our culture. But we One of the most profound books I know on the subject need also to note that the same chapter that establishes the of Christian community is the late Donald Nicholl’s wonprinciple of seniority insists that specific responsibilities in derful journal of his time as rector of the Ecumenical Inthe community do not depend on age but on the discernstitute at Tantur, between Jerusament of the abbot and that the orlem and Bethlehem, The Testing of der of the age should not become a Hearts: A Pilgrim’s Journal (London Stability requires this daily ground for insisting on rights and 1989). Here he records a conversarank. It is a delicate balance but one tion with a visiting Spanish scholar, discipline of mending; it is the whose goal is evidently to secure an who observes that many members ethos in which open conflict over opposite of an atmosphere in of the community have come ‘with position or influence is less likely. much heavy matter of unforgiveness And while rumour suggest that mowhich one’s place always has to and resentment lodged inside them nastic communities are not comfrom previous experience…. It is be fought for, where influence pletely immune to power struggles, precisely those who talk most about the point is that the Rule provides a community-building who block the and hierarchy are a matter of structure that will always challenge flow because they are the ones least any assumption that conflict is the aware of the matter of unforgiveunceasing struggle. ‘default position’ in common life. ness that they are carrying around with them, like a lead ball attached To put this another way, what the to their waists’ (p.62) Is this what is meant by ‘false peace’ Rule outlines is what is to be the ‘currency’ of the com– to talk about community building as an alibi for addressmunity. All communities need a medium of exchange, ing the inner weight of anger and grief? And it isn’t ira language that assures their members that they are enrelevant that Nicholl contrasts the attitude of the Catalan gaged in the same enterprise. It involves common stories Benedictines who live at the core of the community with and practices, things that you can expect your neighbor to that of the more transient scholars, who all come with an understand without explanation, ways and styles of doing agenda that connect to other settings and other communiand saying things. Once again, Donald Nicholl has a perties; the issues are different for those who are not living tinent story: this time, he is listening to a visiting English with stability. priest, who relates the experience of a university mission.

All this gives something of a new edge to the commendation that the monk should be a peacemaker. The precepts are clear enough: there should be no retaliation (29-32), no malicious gossip (40), no hatred or envy or party spirit (64-67). And the climactic items in the list of tools make the priority of peacemaking very plain indeed:

Fr. Aidan is, naturally, interested in what the currency of the university is, and he spends time trying to pick up what people talk about and how. ‘“And eventually,” Aidan said, “one day the penny dropped. What did those people exchange with one another when they met? You’d be surprised – they exchanged grievances. So the currency of that University is grievance.’”

70. To pray for one’s enemies in the love of Christ

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Nicholl comments by translating this into the image of the circulation of the blood in a body: what you receive is what you give, what you put into the circulation. “If you put in grievance, you will get back grievance’ (p. 142).

And he refers to an elderly religious in Yorkshire, unobtrusive and to the untutored eye rather idle; but it is he ‘who sets the currency of goodness and kindness circulating through that community’ (143). Without some such input into the ‘circulation,’ communities will be at best dry and at worst deadly.

sciousness– respect as another of those worn-smooth tools that are simply an extension of the body.

None of this is learned without the stability of the workshop. The community that freely promises to live together before God is one in which both truthfulness and respect are enshrined. I promise that I will not hide from you – and that I will also at times help you not to hide from me or from yourself. I promise that your growth towards the good God wants for you will be a wholly natural and obvious priority for me; and I trust that you have made the same promise. We have a lifetime for this. Without the promise, the temptation us always for the ego’s agenda to surface again, out of fear that I shall be abandoned if the truth is known, fear that I have no time or resource to change as it seems I must. No one is going to run away, and the resources of the community are there on my behalf.

Peacemaking, then, is more than a commitment to reconciling those at odds. On its own, a passion for reconciliation, we have seen, can be a displacement for unresolved angers and resentments. What it may put into circulation is anxiety or censoriousness, certainly a situation of tense untruth when there is pressure to ‘make peace’ at all costs.

The peace that the Rule envisages is more like this ‘curI realize that I am describing the Body of Christ, not just a rency’ we’ve been thinking about, a habit of stable deterBenedictine community. But how often do we understand mination to put into the life of the the promises of baptism as bringing us into body something other than grudges. this sort of group? How often do we think The community that freely And for that to happen, the individual of the Church as a natural place for honmust be growing in the transparency promises to live together esty, where we need not be afraid? Hence we began with, aware of the temptathe need for these localized, even spetions of drama, the staging of emobefore God is one in which cialized workshops, which take their soltional turbulence in which the unace between two dangerous and illusory both truthfulness and respect examined ego is allowed to rampage models of human life together. On the one unchecked. hand is what some think the Church is are enshrined. (including, historically, quite a lot of those It’s all quite difficult for us in the who actually run it…): an institution twenty-first century. We have been where control is a major priority, where experts do things told – rightly- that it is bad to deny and repress emotion; that others can’t, where orderly common life depends on equally right, that it is poisonous for us to be passive under a faintly magical command structure. On the other hand injustice. The problem, which half an hour on the street is the modern and postmodern vision of human sociality: outside will confirm, and five minutes watching ‘reality’ a jostle of plural commitments and hopes, with somewhat programmes on television will reinforce as strongly as you arbitrary tribunals limiting the damage of conflict and secould want, is that we so readily take this reasonable corcuring the rights of all to be themselves up to the point rective to an atmosphere of unreality and oppression as an where they trespass on the territory of others, so that the excuse for prompting the dramas of the will. The denial of other is virtually bound to be seen as the source of frustraemotion is a terrible thing; what takes time is learning that tion. The community of the Rule assumes that the point of the positive path is the education of emotion, not its unauthority is not to mediate between fixed clusters of indicritical indulgence, which actually locks us far more firmly vidual interest but to attend to the needs and strengths of in our mutual isolation. Likewise, the denial of rights is a each in such a way as to lead them forward harmoniously terrible thing, and what takes time to learn is that the oppo(as the chapters on the abbot’s ministry make plain), and it site of oppression is not a wilderness of litigation and repaalso assumes that each member of the community regards ration but the nurture of concrete, shared respect. The Rule relation with the others as the material of his own sanctisuggests that if concern with right and reparation fills our fication, so that it is impossible to see the other as neceshorizon, the one thing that we shall not attain is unselfcon-

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sarily a menace. Neither simply hierarchical (in the sense of taking for granted an authority whose task is to secure uniformity in accord with a dominant will) nor individualistic, the Rule reminds the Church of how counter-culture its style of common life might be.

But we have already begun to move into thinking about my third element in Benedictine holiness, accountability. At the simplest level, this is almost identical with the transparency already discussed, but it is made very clear that the exercise of the abbot’s rule has to be characterized by accountability. Although what the abbot says must be done, without complaint (Ch. 5), the abbot is adjured at some length to recall his answerability before God, his call to be the image of Christ in the monastery and to ‘leaven’ the minds of those under his care, and his duty to ignore apparent claims of status among the monks.

His work is seen as, centrally, one of instruction and formation, and Mayr-Harting is absolutely right to see this as grounded in the language of St. Paul. Authority exists so as to create adult persons in Christ’s likeness, and all discipline is directed to this end – with the added emphasis in the Rule of attention to the requirements of different temperaments (Ch. 27 is the most humanly subtle of the various accounts of this in the text).

The abbot makes distinctions not on the basis of visible difference (rich or poor, slave or free) but on the basis of his discernment of persons. You could say that his accountability is both to God and to the spiritual realities of the people he deals with. And this perhaps fills out the significance of the idea of accountability in the Rule as a whole: we are answerable to the concreteness of the other.

Obedience to the abbot is the most obvious form of this, but that obedience itself refers to the life and health of the whole community, since the abbot exercises discipline only in that context, and is ultimately accountable in those terms. In short, everyone in the community that the Rule envisages is responsible both to and for everyone else – in different modes, depending on the different specific responsibilities they hold, but nonetheless sharing a single basic calling in this respect. The workshop is manifestly a

collaborative venture with the aim of ‘mending vices and preserving love’ (Prologue).

So the Rule envisages holiness as a set of habits – like goodness in general, of course, but not reducible to goodness only. The holy person is not simply the one who keeps the commandments with which the catalogue of tools for good works begins, but one who struggles to live without deceit, their inner life manifest to guides and spiritual parents, who makes peace by addressing the roots of conflict in him or herself, and, under the direction of a skilled superior, attempts to contribute in him or herself, and, under the direction of a skilled superior, attempts to contribute their distinctive gifts in such a way as to sustain a healthy ‘circulation’ in the community. You can see why Benedict is clear about the need for long probation of the intending solitary, and why he is so hard on wanderers, who can never have adequate experience of living with the same people, becoming habituated to charity with these particular, inescapable neighbours (Ch. 1). Until stability has soaked in, it isn’t much use reading the Desert Fathers of Cassian or Basil: to borrow a notion form Jacob Needleman’s remarkable Lost Christianity (New York 1980, esp., pp. 117-9, and Ch. 8 passim), the words of the Fathers are addressed to ‘people who don’t yet exist.’ To know even a little of what the great spiritual teachers are saying you need to have lived through the education of instinct that the Rule outlines. It is just worth noting that there are seventy two ‘tools of good works’ to correspond to the first seventy-two chapters of the Rule; it is the seventy-third chapter that points forward to the greater challenges of the Fathers. And this suggests that the seventy-two tools are precisely, like the seventytwo chapters, a preparation for hearing what the Fathers have to say, a method by which persons who can hear the questions may come into existence.

The product of the workshop is people who are really there; perhaps it’s as simple as that. What Benedict is interested in producing is people who have the skills to diagnose all inside them that prompts them to escape from themselves in the here and now. Just as much as in the literature of the desert – despite his insistence that he is working on a different and lower level – Benedict regards monastic life as a dis-

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cipline for being where you are, rather than taking refuge in the infinite smallness of your own fantasies. Hence he can speak, in one of those images that continues to resonate across centuries, of the expansion of the heart that obedience to the Rule will bring. The life is about realizing great matters in small space: Cael neuadd fawr/ Rheng cyfyng furiau – ‘inhabiting a great hall between narrow walls.’ That is the definition of life itself offered by the Welsh poet Waldo Williams in one if his best-known poems, and it is not a bad gloss on the Rule.

alongside the urge to demonstrate the power we do have, the desire to put off examining the unfinished business in our own societies? And, for that matter, there is the falsity that can also afflict would-be peacemakers, who are more concerned with condemning what’s wrong than with planning for what might change things, and who derive some comfort from knowing where evil lies (i.e., in someone else, some warmongering monster). What do we do to help our culture discover or recover habits of honesty?

Is there a healing of the ‘circulation’? ‘Peace work,’ writes Donald Nicholl (p.224), ‘demands a far higher degree of self-discipline, spiritual preparation and self-knowledge than we are generally prepared to face.’

But I have already hinted at some of what makes the Rule hard reading these days, and in the last bit of these reflections I want to draw out just a little more on this, so as And as for accountability – we tend these days to pride to suggest where the Rule is salutary reading for us, indiourselves on taking this seriously; we have introduced the vidually and corporately. The idea fundamental to the Rule notion of audit into most of what we do and are encour(and to practically all serious religious writing) that there aged to challenge anything that looks are some good things that are utterly inlike non-accountable exercising of accessible without the taking of time is authority. But I suspect that all this is probably the greatest brick wall. And it Stability is still the key, actually rather a long way from what is not just a matter of personal neurosis; given the twenty-four hour pattern of a staying with that gives us the the Rule has in mind. First of all, the accountability of the Rule depends on news provision, we are discouraged very opportunity ourselves to change a clear common understanding of what strongly from any suspicion that the sigeveryone is answerable to: the judgnificance of events might need time to as we accompany, and so to ment of Christ. The Rule has nothing understand. Recently, of course, in the resembling a speculative Christology, aftermath of the war, those who were understand more fully. but all the lines lead to Christ, the cendoubtful of its wisdom or legitimacy have tral instance of authority rightly used been urged to retract - since we have, afand attention rightly directed to God and the immediate ter all, won; it doesn’t seem to be easy to convey that, unother. There is no interest at all in the Rule in challengtil you can see how relations of various kinds are properly ing authority on abstract principle. What there is is a clear mended, it might be premature to speak of victory – even commitment to listening, as a central and necessary aspect of endings. It is rather symptomatic of our urgency in wantof making decisions, listening even to the most junior (Ch. ing what we these days can call closure. But the truth is 3); the possibility of explaining difficulties and asking for that serious and deep meanings only emerge as we look consideration of special circumstances (Ch. 68); and the and listen, as we accompany a long story in its unfolding – repeated insistence that the abbot is measured by and must whether we are thinking about the meaning of a life (mine measure himself by the standard of Christ’s pastoral seror anyone’s) or the meaning of a period in international vice, with its focal principle of self-gift for the sake of the affairs. Stability is still the key, a staying with that gives us life of the other. When abbatial decisions are made, the the opportunity ourselves to change as we accompany, and monk must ultimately obey, but the context remains one so to understand more fully. in which we are being urged to think not about an audit in And what we have been thinking about in relation to the sense of an assessment of where the processes in use peacemaking has an uncomfortable pertinence just at the are delivering the desired results, but about the degree to moment. Are we capable, as Western societies of peace that which the community is genuinely working with a shared is not ‘false’ in Benedict’s terms? That is, are we sufficiently focus and common language, in which both discussion and alert to the agenda we are bringing to international conflict decision are possible.

– resentments, the sense of half-buried impotence that sits

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The Rule is in no way a primitive democratic document, and its appeals to obedience are undoubtedly counter-cultural these days. But what the discomfort arising from this misses is the sense of standing together before Christ, becoming used to Christ’s scrutiny together. In this way, we both see ourselves under Christ’s judgment and see others under Christ’s mercy, and we are urged not to despair of that mercy even for ourselves. Not to despair of mercy is the last of the tools of good works; we could say that the final point of accountability before Christ was that we should have as the extension of our natural bodily being the habit of hope, trust in the possibilities of compassion.

And the abbot is in a unique position to put that into circulation.

What the ‘audit’ culture lacks is usually a positive shared focus. We have a clear sense of what counts as breach of responsibility, and usually a clear (if often artificially clear) account of what effective exercise of responsibility should produce. What we don’t often have is the tacit or explicit reference to the shared focus of meaning that allows real mutuality in the life of the group under authority. Challenges belong in the context – yet again – of a stability that guarantees we all know what we are talking about and what we hope for.

Dr. Rowan Williams

So the Rule’s sketch of holiness and sanity puts a few questions to us, as Church and culture. It suggests that one of our main problems is that we don’t know where to find the stable relations that would allow us room to grow without fear. The Church, which ought to embody not only covenant with God but covenant with each other, does not always give the feeling of a community where people have unlimited time to grow with each other, nourishing and challenging. We have little incentive to be open with each other if we live in an ecclesial environment where political conflict and various kinds of grievance are the dominant currency. And, believers and unbelievers, we’d like to be peacemakers without the inner work, which alone makes peace something more than a pause in battle. We are bad at finding that elusive balance between corrupt and collu-

sive passivity which keeps oppression alive and the litigious obsessiveness that continually asks whether I am being attended to as I deserve. And no, I don’t have a formula for resolving that; I only ask that we find ways of reminding ourselves that there is a problem.

So we’d better have some communities around that embody the stability that is at the heart of all this. ‘Each [religious] house is meant to be a model – an ‘epiphany’ rather – of the condition of mankind reconciled in Christ,’ wrote Fergus Kerr in an essay around 1970 (p.44 in Religious Life Today, John Coventry, Rembert Weakland and others, Tenbury Wells, n.d). And he goes on to say that this is impossible unless we face the real condition of unreconciledness in and between us, which is why religious houses are not always exactly easy places…. But in the terms of these reflections we should have to say that without the stability the work isn’t done; the tools don’t become extensions of the hand in such a way that the other’s reality really and truly ceases to be an intrusion and a threat.

How right Benedict was to say that it is only when community life has done its work that someone should be allowed to take up the solitary life; only when the other is not a problem can solitude be Christlike – otherwise it is an escape, another drama.

A monochrome picture? Perhaps, but the self-indulgent technicolour of what we are sometimes our preferred styles needs some chastening The workshop is at the end of the day a solid and tough metaphor for that spirituality that is a lifetime’s labour, yet also an expansion of the heart; just as all good physical work is an expansion of the body into this environment, changing even as it brings about change.

Holiness is a much-patched cloth, a smooth-worn tool at least as much as it is a blaze of new light because it must be finally a state we can live with and in - the hand fitted to the wood, forgetful of the join. @Rowan Williams 2003 Reprinted with permission

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The Inaugural Oxford Summer Programme:

by Portsmouth Abbey School Humanities Teacher and Executive Director of the Portsmouth Institute Christopher Fisher

JUST BEFORE THE START OF FALL TERM, twelve students and five faculty members from Portsmouth Abbey and St. Louis Priory School travelled to Oxford for a ten-day exploration of Catholic thought and the spiritual life at the University of Oxford. The inaugural Oxford Summer Programme, a program of the Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture, offered students an opportunity to experience life as an Oxford student – from class in libraries covered floor-to-ceiling with books, to prayer in private chapels, to punting on the Isis (while trying to stay dry).

The students studied the Catholic literature of J.R.R. Tolkien with Abbey faculty and visiting professors from Oxford, including prominent philosopher Sir Roger Scruton. Students lived, studied, and celebrated the Divine Office at St Benet’s Hall, the Benedictine residence hall at Oxford. Outside of class, the “fellowship” studied significant historical and cultural treasures of England: they explored Oxford’s array of colleges, each with its own rich history and culture; visited Stonor Park, the ancestral home of one of the oldest Catholic families in England; enjoyed a private tour of Westminster Abbey, followed by a beautiful Evensong; punted on the Isis; and much, much more. Accepted students earned the designation of Junior Fellow of the Portsmouth Institute, an appelation acknowledging their love of learning.

It was an amazing experience. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s some of what students had to say about their experience: “The Oxford Programme presented me with an intellectually challenging environment to grow in knowledge and camaraderie. Being among my friends and authorities on knowledge such as Sir Roger Scruton challenged our traditional notions on the transcendentals by infusing them with a breath of life derived from the conversations we had throughout the Programme. In short the

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e:

A Fellowship of Mind and Spirit Oxford Program presented me with the opportunity to not only grow in knowledge, but to truthfully understand and be able to wield knowledge for years to come.”

– Nico Setzer ‘19 “The Oxford Programme was one of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences I’ve had to date. Being a Rhode Island native for most of my life, I haven’t done much traveling. This, being my first time flying without family, opened my worldview, and before I knew it I was immersed in culture, friendship, beauty and knowledge under the guidance of St. Louis monks who knew all the best spots for things like grabbing a bite to eat or contemplating grace in art and nature. Oxford is a breathtaking city that I will most definitely make sure to visit again.”

– Abby Gibbons ‘19 “The Oxford Programme was an eye-opening experience where I was able to see the environments of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis while they were writing their worldrenowned novels. Not only was I able to see how the city of Oxford affected their writing and life, but I was able to experience the city for myself and make observations which changed my own perspective on life.”

– Bella Hannigan ‘19 “There is nothing better than starting the day off with a warm chocolate croissant and ending with a cookie sundae at a local shop! (I swear, there were healthy meals in between). In Oxford, I was able to step outside of my comfort zone and be adventurous in all aspects: trying new foods, exploring the city with other students, and engaging with challenging texts. Surrounded by equally eager peers, monks, and teachers, it was more than just an academic experience, but truly a growing and leisurely experience.”

– Julia Lamarre ‘19 The 2019 Oxford Summer Programme will take place August 11-20. Find details and application for interested students at www.portsmouthinstitute.org/oxford.

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Ramon Ferreyros ’58 and his wife Malena take a trip down memory lane as they flip through Ramon’s yearbook.

The last weekend of September brought the first signs of autumn to Cory’s Lane along with nearly 200 eager Ravens ready to celebrate Reunion Weekend 2018! Our graduating classes ending in 3s and 8s arrived on campus, excited to reminisce about their Abbey (or Priory!) days and to create new memories.

For each returning alumnus/a, the experience was as unique as his or her time here at Portsmouth Abbey.

For some Reunion-goers, this was the first time back to campus in decades; for others, it was a familiar return to a nearby neighborhood. Some travelled from as far as Korea and Peru, many brought their growing families, and others stopped by for just a quick visit.

Regardless of how they arrived, each left with new memories of the Abbey.

Some of the highlights of the weekend included an open conversation with the Headmaster, a traditional New England lobster and clambake, lively athletics contests under sunny skies, a tour of our new Science Building and a sunset cocktail on the Winter Garden Patio followed by a surf and turf dinner with fellow classmates.

Members of the Class of ’88 (Robert Sheppard, Jamal Titus and Cameron Taylor) and their spouses explore campus.

Thank you to all of our alumni who made this year’s Reunion Weekend so special; we cannot wait to welcome you back to campus again soon. Graduating classes ending in 4s and 9s, mark your calendar – next year is your year! Reunion 2019 will be held September 20-22, 2019.

Members of the Class of ‘13 share a laugh during Saturday’s dinner.

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Ted Howard ’63 and John Reid ’62 join fellow alumnae for a sneak peek of the new Science Building.

Isabel Keogh ’13, Xijia Yuan ’13 and Meredith Horan ’13 cheer on fellow Ravens during the athletic contests.

Kristen Bitter Jellison ’98, Kathleen Mannix Grandin ’98 and Tara Tavares Winston ’98 reminisce over seafood at the clambake.

Jim Frank ’73 and his wife, Leslie Smith Frank, celebrate the weekend at the sunset cocktail hour.

Reunion goers from the Class of ’73 enjoy the sunshine and athletic contests.

Members of the Class of ’13 gather at the Saturday night Reunion dinner.

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Diman Club Front Row, from left: John Hayes ’58, Red Cummings ’63, Jeremiah Brady ’58, William Cannon ’63, R. Denis Ambrose ’58; Back Row: Carlos Cleary (who attended on behalf of his father, George ’58), Walter Cotter ’66, Edwin Howard ’63, Stevenson Ward ’63, Robert Skinner ’63, James Blute ’62

Class of 1963 Front Row, from left: Red Cummings, Edwin Howard; Back Row: Stevenson Ward, Robert Skinner, William Cannon

Class of 1968 Front Row, from left: Gregory Hornig, John MacVeigh Regan, Vincent Lackner, Jr., John Cotter, John Carney, Michael Rich; Back Row: John Millard, James Mannion, Robert Lanigan, Peter Romatowski, Daniel Dumas

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Class of 1973 Front Row, from left: Tom Anderson, Donald Macdonald, James Buckley, Peter MacGuire; Back Row: Thomas Surprenant, Cushing Condon, Christopher Long, James Frank, Martin Devegvar

Class of 1978 Front Row, from left: Mark Vermylen, Adam Dixon, Allen Chatterton, James McGuire; Back Row: Joseph Elliot, Eric Speer, Pierre Pagès, William Keogh

Class of 1983 Front Row, from left: Matthew Rossi, Christopher Nolan, Robert Quinn; Back Row: Paul Anghinetti, Adam Carter, James Kaufman

Class of 1988 Front Row, from left: Jamal Titus, Christopher Abbate, Mason Gay, Sean Eno; Back Row: Stratford Wallace, Keith Cardoza, Robert Sheppard, B. Cameron Taylor

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Class of 1993 Front Row, from left: Matthew Stencel, Michael Brown; Back Row: Ramon Goris, Dennis Iglesias, Taylor Fairman

Class of 2003 From left: Niamh Bohan, Kellie DiPalma Simeone, Shannon Maher Ruggieri

Class of 1998 Front Row, from left: Griffin Flynn, Kathleen Mannix Grandin, Taylor Rock, Tara Tavares Winston, Tristan MoulignĂŠ, Michael McCarthy; Back Row: Kristen Bitter Jellison, Cristina Craig Wurster, Nathaniel Spencer, Joon Lim, Kathryn Rooney-Sams, Roberto Kriete, Matthew Kavanagh

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Class of 2008 Front Row, from left: Harry Holden, Margaret McCarthy, Molly O’Neil, James Buckley ; Back Row: Kathleen Behan, Drew Kemp, Michael Behan, Margaret Power, Kunwoo Kim

Class of 2013 Front Row, from left: Michael Stark, William Reynolds, Erin Shaw, Melanie Camacho, Sarah Sienkiewicz, Meredith Horan, Xijia Yuan, Isabel Keogh, Ann Gallagher, Zachary Pray; Back Row: Michael Sheerin, Rhoads MacGuire, Julia Noble, Julia Thompson, Caroline Hall, Garin Tracy, O’Callahan Taylor, Hannah Niles, Joseph Yates, Allison Bolles, Sean Knowlan, Andrew Lowis, Coleman Clark, Fletcher Bonin

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ALUMNUS PROFILE

Ignatius MacLellan ‘77

Ignatius at Pancake Communion

gnatius MacLellan is a big personality – it’s evident in the rollicking way he waltzes through a quick recitation of his backstory. A philosophy major at Boston College, MacLellan earned his J.D. at the University of Maine School of Law and after graduating, applied to be a White House Fellow.

“I made it through three rounds of interviews, then got bumped,” he recalls. “Someone told me about another fellowship at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), so I applied and got in.

Sometimes when we don’t succeed in the way we want, we succeed in a way we never expected.”

teered to help those less fortunate. Eventually, he opted to make housing advocacy his life’s work, serving as vice president for public affairs at the Northern New England Housing Investment Fund, director of Fannie Mae’s Northern New England Community Business Center, and program officer at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before assuming his current position as managing director in the Homeownership Division at New Hampshire’s Housing Finance Authority. Here he assists the state’s low- and moderate-income residents in making the transition to homeowners.

Although MacLellan didn’t realize it at the time, the HUD fellowship would ultimately lay the groundwork for his life’s work: advocacy for affordable housing. Although MacLellan initially practiced law for some 13 years, he also continuously volun-

A commitment to helping others is deeply ingrained in MacLellan’s DNA, a by-product, he explains, of his upbringing and time at Portsmouth. “My parents valued a Catholic education and a good education, too, so they sent me from our home in Illinois

I

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Local girls greet Ignatius on their way to the market

to the Abbey.” Once there, MacLellan forged relationships with students and faculty that influence his life to this day. Abbey classmates remain among his dearest friends, and lessons learned from faculty continue to resonate. “Father Ambrose was a wonderful mentor– he taught me a gentler, more caring approach to my life. Father Andrew was very smart, but also humble. He would pick up trash around campus and seemed to intuit when I needed encouragement. And my American history teacher Cliff Hobbins taught me that even though I wasn’t at the top of my class, I still had something I could bring to the world if I just applied myself.”

Some years later, after finishing law school, MacLellan found himself seeking that something.

“I knew I needed to focus on a principle, and I looked back to my time at the Abbey. I thought of the monks – their intelligence and their dedication to God – and I decided that ‘Pax,’ Latin for peace, would

become the central word in my life.

It’s what all humans are trying to find. Now I even have ‘Paz,’ Spanish for peace, monogrammed on my shirts.

“There are a lot of forces in this world that ask us to focus on prestige,” MacLellan continues, “but one of the things that the Abbey does really well is to instill a sense of responsibility to use your talents to do good things. Their attitude is ‘We will educate you, but you must use your education for a greater purpose.’”

Although modest about his accomplishments, MacLellan concedes he has a gift for inspiring and leading others.

“I’m energetic, noisy, and exuberant,” he says unabashedly. “As it turns out, the things that got me in trouble with the nuns in junior high serve me well in leadership positions.” It was these traits, and more, that MacLellan drew upon when he stepped into a board position with Epilogos Charities Inc., a non-

Tim Seeley ’ 77 (left) and Ignatius at at Oscar Romero’s casita at the Hospital Divina Providencia in San Salvador.; Tim has joined Ignatius’s mission group several times over the years.

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“Sometimes when we don’t succeed in the way we want, we succeed in a way we never expected.” profit dedicated to improving residents’ lives in the impoverished El Salvadoran town of San José Villanueva through initiatives in health, education, employment, water issues, energy, public sanitation, and of course, housing.

Ignatius working at one of the homestead sites

MacLellan’s introduction to the charity was happenstance. He was working in his church’s food kitchen when he met Mike & Susie Jenkins, former Peace Corps workers who were among the first to travel to El Salvador in the 1960s. The Jenkins’ were once again helping people in the country through Epilogos, and they encouraged MacLellan to get involved. “I suggested that our food pantry could send money, and Mike said, ‘Instead of writing a check, come with us and see the country, hear it, smell it,’” MacLellan recalls. “When I heard smell it, I said, ‘No, really, I’ll just write a check.’”

Eventually, however, MacLellan acquiesced and travelled to El Salvador. It was a life-altering decision. “I fell in love with the people and the experience,” he says.

Over a decade later, he has visited the country more than 20 times, leading groups of students on seven-day excursions to San José Villanueva to learn firsthand about the country’s sad history of violence and work on community building projects. “We always do physical projects – people need homes, schools need bathrooms, etc.– and our work is a physical manifestation of God’s love,” he explains. “We work with the people, not for them. We believe in equality. A woman in El Salvador once said to me, ‘Todos somos iguales – We are all equal,’ and that has become our guiding principle.”

But the trips aren’t all work; participants have fun while in country, too, says MacLellan. “I’m not a touchy-feely person,” he avers. “I’m a clown by nature – a loud, outgoing Irishman – and through my work with Epilogos, I’ve learned that faith can be exuberant, funny even. It’s not always pious and holy– it can be joyous, even in the face of challenges.”

Ignatius reads Dr. Seuss’s Huevos Verdes con Jamón to children of San José Villanueva

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When he was young, MacLellan says, he was ambitious. “Now I’m focused on passing on my commitment to doing for others – I want to know that there will be people following after me.” MacLellan concedes his wish is a tall one. Pervasive gang violence has had an extremely detrimental impact on San José Villaneuva, he explains, and assistance from organizations like Epi-

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Ignatius with Christian Ignacio, killed by gang members in 2017

logos has dropped off precipitously. Volunteers who previously journeyed to the community bringing funding and operations to implement unique projects no longer feel safe coming to the country. Even Epilogos is down to between 50 and 70 volunteers each year. “At a time when the village needs the most help and the most connection with others, there has been a reduction due to the gangs,” says MacLellan emotionally. But he and other members of the board are not dissuaded. “Epilogos is sticking with the people and adapting our business model.” To support new initiatives, donors are giving money rather than time, and increasingly the charity is relying less on North American volunteers and more on village residents. “We adapt because we love the people and we want to be with them,” MacLellan says simply.

“There are a lot of forces in this world that ask us to focus on prestige, but one of the things that the Abbey does really well is to instill a sense of responsibility to use your talents to do good things.”

When asked what words of advice he might offer to others searching for a way to give back, MacLellan swiftly recites the opening lines of “The Violence of Love,” a poem by the former Archbishop of San Salvador Óscar Romero. “How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work….’ That’s a profound thing that I wish I would have learned many years earlier,” he says. “Now I understand that regardless of your profession, if you dedicate your work to God, then you’re doing God’s work. I believe in God and Jesus because that’s what I’ve been taught, but I believe in the Holy Spirit because his presence on these trips is undeniable.

“Epilogos is one of the greatest blessings and also one of the greatest challenges in my life,” MacLellan concludes. “The people of El Salvador are spectacular at every level, and I feel so fortunate to have received the spiritual and educational preparation I needed to work there. The Abbey has been so good to me.”

Ignatius Receiving Antonia’s Blessing

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ALUMNUS PROFILE

Peter McCaffery ‘63

Peter on the Block Island ferry on the way to his brother’s 75th birthday celebration several years ago.

FOR INNOVATIVE EDUCATOR PETER M C CAFFERY ’63 ,

the pursuit of knowledge is an ongoing endeavor and a goal that has informed his life. From his school days at the Priory to his years at Boston Arts Academy (BAA) and now to his Advisory Council and Leadership Circle work with that institution, McCaffery has sought to achieve connections with others that allow all parties to grow, both intellectually and spiritually. “When I arrived at Portsmouth as a junior in high school, I was very spiritual and in search of self-understanding, and the invocational spirituality of the place helped me,” he recalls.

“At the Priory, we were living with men who had committed their lives to spirituality. We knew them not only as teachers, but also as human beings, and they knew us – it was very powerful.”

The import of being fully known is a revelation that McCaffery has kept top-of-mind for over four decades as a teacher. “When you’re working with kids, they want to know you three-dimensionally – they can smell insincerity a mile away – and I understand that, because I experienced the power of being fully seen at Portsmouth.

The relationships I formed there were seminal and have lasted throughout my life.”

A resident of St. Benet’s, McCaffery bonded deeply with housemates David Corcoran, Russell “Doc” Buckley, John “Moe” Cadley, Mike Casey, John Miglietta and Rick Robinson. “We shared the trials and tribulations of school life and supported one another socially and emotionally,” he recalls. “David, Russ, Mike, John and I maintained our friendships after Portsmouth and all of them have had lifelong, positive impacts on me.” Classmate Chris Dorment remains a close friend as well. “He and his wife, Mimi, have buttressed me at key times in my life and have been a sounding board for me in my spiritual/ intellectual/political quest,” McCaffery asserts.

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Priory faculty members were equally influential. “These men were woven into our lives, and they were fully rounded. They pressed each of us to work to our full potential, while at the same time recognizing our individual challenges.” McCaffery effortlessly rattles off the names of the teachers who touched his life so deeply more than five decades ago. “Father Damian was intelligent and energetic, but also deeply intuitive. He realized I was working as hard as I could, so he was very gentle with me. He seemed to know that I couldn’t take additional pressure and thus protected my inner well-being.”

Indeed, Damian’s influence was so great, says McCaffery, that he named his son after him. “Father David, my Latin V instructor, was a little more distant, but very passionate about Latin poetry,” McCaffery continues. “He was a scholarly soul who leaned lightly on us to do our translations and demonstrated the power of a scholarly mindset to me.”

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“These men were woven into our lives, and they were fully rounded. They pressed each of us to work to our full potential, while at the same time recognizing our individual challenges.”

Over the last four decades, McCaffery has repeatedly demonstrated that he, too, is fully rounded. An innovative educator, he is a founding member of the Boston Arts Academy, the city’s first and only public high school for the performing and visual arts, as well as the founder and director of Tree of Light Initiatives, a program dedicated to resilience, wellness, staff development and team building in urban schools. In 2010, in recognition

of his accomplishments, McCaffery was named a City of Boston ‘Educator of the Year’– one of nine individuals selected from 5,500 educators serving the 58,000 students of the Boston Public Schools.

McCaffery admits that his journey to this point has been one of constant, and at times painful, growth. When he arrived at Portsmouth Priory in the fall of 1961, he recalls, he was an intense young man, desperate to find a means of channeling his energy. He was also terribly homesick for his hometown of Washington, CT, a rural community of 2,500 in the northwest corner of the state. “We had eight acres of land and four horses. I was heavily involved in the social and sports scenes and had a serious girlfriend,” he explains. “But my dad had a formula for my brothers and me. We would start public high school, spend our sophomore year abroad, return home for our junior and senior years, and then enter Harvard.” McCaffery had chosen to go to England but was unhappy and eager to return to the States. “My dad said I could come home if I could get into Portsmouth Priory or Saint Louis Priory, so I applied, and to Portsmouth I came. Once there, I poured everything into my studies and my faith.”

McCaffery’s efforts paid off; after graduating from Portsmouth, he and one other classmate were admitted to Harvard, where McCaffery set out to study languages.

Challenging coursework in Greek and Latin, however, together with a compelling composition course, persuaded him that he should focus on finding wisdom in his own language, so he switched majors and in 1967 graduated with a degree in English Literature.

Peter delivers a speech upon receiving ‘Educator of the Year Award’ at the Emerson Majestic Theater in Boston’s Theater District. In the background is Richard Stutman, long-time and extraordinary president of the Boston Teacher’s Union. Offcamera is Mayor Tom Menino, now-departed 5-term mayor of Boston, who was one of Peter’s heroes and mentors in his youth work in Boston. “An outstanding public servant!” says Peter.

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Peter on Block Island with his wife and soul-mate, Ande Diaz, who is currently the chief diversity officer at Saint Anselm College, a Benedictine school in Manchester, New Hampshire, where they now live.

For the next few years, McCaffery taught, first in private schools and then in public. He dipped his toe in San Francisco’s counter culture, spent a few years in progressive schools in New York City, and then returned to Boston to continue his career. “I took jobs that were interesting and taught me about urban kids and city living so that I could determine how best to serve them and contribute to their education,” he explains. “I discovered the diverse communities and rich cultures of Boston’s inner city – which has been one of the great gifts of working there!”

In 1993, McCaffery joined the faculty of Fenway Middle College High School. The move proved to be a propitious one. The Fenway’s co-director was Linda Nathan, a forward-thinking educator committed to using the arts as a tool to educate students in urban environments.

McCaffery and Nathan hit it off, and five years later, when Nathan was invited to serve as headmaster of the newly conceived Boston Arts Academy, she asked McCaffery to apply for the position of Director of Student

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Support Services. He accepted and was launched into a period of heady personal and professional growth.

“Linda has a capacity to see deeply (and to sing forth) the gifts of her teachers and her students,” enthuses McCaffery, “and the next 13 years were just an unbelievable experience. As director of student support, I had the opportunity to establish a wellness program and peer mentoring initiatives that supported our students in so many ways.” Initially a crisis response team of one, McCaffery eventually grew his department to a staff of 16 that offered students prevention services through wellness initiatives. “Over time, we were able to get ahead of the curve and keep the kids away from crisis, which was incredibly rewarding.

“The Benedictines have a saying: ‘Always we begin again….’, McCaffery notes, “and I see it in relationship to working in an urban school. One has to always maintain what the Buddhists call ‘the beginner’s mind,’ a

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complete openness to what is in front of you, in the moment, without pre-conception. There are too many variables in any given situation to be cognitively, intellectually prepared for each one.” Working with students from the BAA and The Fenway– many of whom had encountered loss, trauma, anxiety, depression, economic difficulty and more – was challenging, McCaffery admits, but it would have been virtually impossible were he not able to maintain an open heart and come to each new situation with an attitude of “always begin again.” Peter explains, “I saw this as an offering, a kind of ‘eucharist,’ a transaction between human beings that comes from a place in the heart, a ‘tabernacle’ both fully human and fully divine, from which comfort and healing can emanate.”

“One has to always maintain what the Buddhists call ‘the beginner’s mind,’ a complete openness to what is in front of you, in the moment, without pre-conception. There are too many variables in any given situation to be cognitively, intellectually prepared for each one.”

As a faculty member, McCaffery also had a front row seat to the power of the arts within education. “We wanted to teach kids in a new way, and we realized that many of the students in the Boston public school system already had the arts – music, dance, visual arts, theater – strongly interwoven into their culture. They had an instilled passion for art, and that provided us with a means of getting them to school.”

BAA serves a diverse student body– a majority of whom come from low-income families – offering them both formal arts training and a college preparatory education.

“Linda Nathan taught me that each kid comes with a curriculum embedded within his or her life story, and that from these life stories we can extract clues to pedagogy,” McCaffery explains. “She knows that the arts call upon students to develop themselves from the inside out in order to speak their own passionate truth.” At BAA, students learn to use the habits of mind they develop in the arts – the ability to work in an ensemble, give and receive criticism, cultivate a strong work ethic – and apply them to their academic studies. “The arts use the body as well as the mind,” McCaffery notes. “Students develop emotional intelligence and learn to organize their thoughts and present themselves to others.”

Peter with Linda Nathan, the founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, at the ceremony at which he received an ‘Educator of the Year Award’ from the Boston Public School system in 2010.

The results, McCaffery says proudly, are compelling. “Our students have a stellar success rate with respect to pass-

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ALUMNUS PROFILE

ing the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) exam. Our students are exceptional and so incredibly grateful for all you do for them. To have contact with that level of giftedness and radiance…the psychic income it returns is wonderful!”

Leadership Circle. Recently he accepted a board position at Kreiva Academy, a public charter school currently forming in Manchester, NH.

For those who may wish to follow in his footsteps as an educator, McCaffery’s advice is simple. “Fling yourself into Finding these gifted students and helping them to realize it! Go beyond your comfort zone, learn about someone their potential is not an issue, McCaffery observes. “Our else’s culture, and go where you can learn the most. Don’t application process is very competitive; every year, we have worry about your career – if you’re interested in teaching, approximately 800 applicants for 125 slots,” he explains. go right out and look around.” There are many different “Since 1998, the BAA has graduated 1,300 students, 70 types of schools one can work in these days, he observes: percent of whom come from households living in poverty parochial, charter, pilot, urban, rural. And volunteering and 96 percent of whom have gone on to college.” can be an invaluable learning experience as well. “When I was at Harvard, I volunteered at Eliminating the socioeconomic chalPhillips Brooks House, getting unlenges students face, however, is dergraduates out to work in reform “Our students are exceptional another matter. “That’s the whole schools,” he recalls. “The experience and so incredibly grateful for deal,” McCaffery says, briefly chokwas fantastic. Working with those stuing up. “But I am more of an optiall you do for them. To have dents was affirming and fulfilling, and mist than anything. I think there are contact with that level it grounded me at a time when I was many who want to close the gap bewallowing in abstraction.” And finally, of giftedness and radiance… tween rich and poor.” Everyone can says McCaffery, take self-care serithe psychic income it returns do something to combat poverty, he ously. “Sleep, eat well, and exercise,” insists, whatever his station in life. is wonderful!” he counsels, “because you can give all “You’ve got to think about structural you have and more, and the kids will ways to level the playing field; for exdrink it in. But you must sustain yourample, vote for people who will provide daycare, affordself before you can sustain them.” able housing, and access to education and healthcare.”

McCaffery is deeply grateful for his experiences as an eduThere’s an amazing reality out there, McCaffery asserts, cator but contends that they likely wouldn’t have mateand it’s our moral obligation to be good to those who rialized had he not opened himself to the opportunities are less fortunate. “The kids I work with every day can do inherent at the Abbey. “If I hadn’t had that remarkable things at a very high level and having them as professionchapel in which to meditate and the ability to contemplate als in our midst will be a wonderful thing.” When looking in so spiritually evocative a setting, if I hadn’t been allowed at income disparity, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap to take down the artificial distinction between my spiritual of the ‘other’ mode – it’s not us, it’s them – he observes. and secular lives which Portsmouth afforded me, I would “There’s a tendency to dehumanize, rather than to accept, not have found the ‘tabernacle’ of the Student Support and that’s not good. These kids deserve the same care that Team at the BAA to house my aspiration to heal (and be our own children do.” Nor are these hollow sentiments healed by) the remarkable students and teachers of the for McCaffery. As of 2011 Peter assumed emeritus status Boston Public School system.” at BAA, and his ongoing roles include Advisory Council and

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Jamal Burk ’06

ALUMNUS PROFILE

making learning fun: “Mr. O’Connor, who I had for Humanities, taught with an intensity and passion that made the classes very fun. I also really enjoyed English class with Ms. Smith. She pushed me to consistently do my best. Dr. Billings was very engaging with the class and was also great at intertwining current events into our discussions.”

Jamal Burk ’06 spends his days as a criminal prosecutor within the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, a job that requires many skills and a penchant for multitasking.

After graduating from Portsmouth Abbey School in 2006, Jamal headed to Ties to the Abbey aren’t JaDickinson College in Carlmal’s only school allegiancisle, PA. He earned his BA es. He also serves on the in law and policy and was board at San Miguel School, offered a job at a Provihis former primary school dence law firm. With his in Providence. “Joining the interest in legal studies afboard at San Miguel was a firmed, Jamal structured very exciting opportunity his schedule to enable enthat came up sometime last rollment in the evening year,” Jamal says. “I recogprogram at Suffolk Uninized the immense effect versity Law School. Upon that the school had on me as passing the bar Jamal well as my classmates. In the signed on to his position 16 years since graduating, I Jamal with sons Jackson, 4 (left) and Jamal, Jr, 6 in the Rhode Island Office have remained in touch and of the Attorney General, built a familial relationship where he has worked for over three years. with the school. I look forward to supporting the school’s leaders and helping to continue their great work by offering my A career in law had always been in the back of Jamal’s perspective on how to best help our students.” mind, but the thought solidified during his sophomore year at Dickinson. At that time he was offered an internship at a Providence law firm with the father of an Abbey classmate; this evolved into more than a typical internship. “He allowed me to accompany him during his duties as a municipal judge,” Jamal says, “and took the time to talk to me about my feelings and opinions about what was happening in the courtroom.”

Jamal keeps in touch with his Abbey classmates to reminisce and connect. “They are the type of friends that I can call after not hearing from each other for a couple years and pick up right where we left off,” he says. He recalls some of his favorite classes and teachers, crediting them with

Jamal’s accomplishments in his career thus far manifest a driven and inspiring individual. He credits a portion of his success to his time at the Abbey, maintaining that he was well prepared for college and beyond due to the academic rigor. “At the Abbey I learned great study habits and how to apply them to success in the classroom,” he says. “Beyond the education, boarding at the School taught me to be more self-reliant and responsible. Meeting students from different backgrounds and with different perspectives taught me openness and patience. I have carried these lessons with me since graduating in 2006, and they have undoubtedly helped me throughout my life.”

W II N NT T EE R R A A ll u um mn n ii B BU U LL LL EE T T II N N 22 0 0 11 99 W

PAGE 47 PAGE 47

Elizabeth Colley Chwalk ’03

gaming company, with over 12,000 employees and customers in 100 countries, IGT generates nearly $5 billion in annual revenue.

Q&A

The most satisfying moments of my job are when the value of our company is fully reflected in our stock price. It is personally gratifying to represent the company in meetings and conferences with shareholders and other sophisticated institutional investors.

What would you say have been the “top three” big events that have shaped your life to date?

The small decisions I have made on a daily basis have had a larger cumulative effect and been more consequential than any single big event.

These include decisions like: staying committed and engaged at work, investing in relationships, and being curious and asking questions.

Elizabeth Chwalk ‘03 is a native of Rhode Island, and after gaining years of professional finance experience in New York and Boston, her path has lead her back to the Ocean State. Elizabeth was recently selected as one of the Top 40 under Forty by the Providence Business Journal.

What has been your educational and professional path since graduating from Portsmouth Abbey in 2003?

I graduated from Fairfield University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics.

My first job out of college was working for Bracebridge Capital, a leading hedge fund manager based in Boston. In 2010, I began work as an equity research analyst at Needham & Company, an independent investment bank based in New York City. In 2016, I joined the International Game Technology (IGT) Investor Relations team in Providence.

Is your role in the gaming and technology industry by design or circumstance?

My current role allows me to use my equity research background in a corporate environment in my home state. After years of covering publicly traded companies, I knew I wanted to work at a technology company. I have been surprised how much I enjoy working in the gaming industry.

What is the most satisfying part of your job?

IGT is a large and complex company, so there are always new and interesting dynamics to understand. As the world’s largest

PAGE 48

Meeting my husband, Teddy, has also been important. His even-keeled support over the past ten years has allowed me to focus on my work.

Which classes/teachers at the Abbey inspired you?

Ms. Peters and Mr. Ingram were outstanding English teachers.

They both showed me how enjoyable reading literature could be, and how important it is to write clearly. Mr. Hobbins also sparked an interest in economics, which I minored in at college. And Mr. McDonough and Señor Guerenabarrena certainly inspired me in a very specific way: to be on time!

What are some of the lessons you were taught as a student here that you still employ in your professional life?

Intellectual curiosity and critical thinking are essential in every role.

I developed those skills at the Abbey. Classes structured around discussion groups taught me to be confident sitting around a conference table and sharing questions, ideas, and opinions.

As a successful businesswoman, what advice would you offer to our alumnae in the early stages of their careers?

It feels like I am still in the early stage of my career!

My specific piece of advice for alumnae: it’s important to speak plainly and confidently about money and compensation. This is critical professionally, and it is also important for personal financial independence.

More broadly, I found that my 20s were the perfect time to set the foundation for my career and to learn valuable skills. That is the age when I had the most energy and aptitude for learning.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

P o rt s m o u t h A b b e y S c h o o l ’s 18th Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament is just around the corner!

SAVE THE DATE! Friday

G

June 7

G

2019

The Aquidneck Club (formerly Carnegie Abbey Club) ~ Portsmouth, Rhode Island 10:00 am – Registration, Brunch and Practice NOON – Shotgun Start Dinner Reception, Silent Auction and Awards Ceremony at Tournament Finish Please contact Laura Turner for registration or sponsorship opportunities at lturner@portsmouthabbey.org or 401.643.1184.

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

PAGE 49

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOD’S PLAN IS BETTER THAN OUR PLAN B?

In February, my cluster of United Methodist churches discussed possibilities for an event to reach out to the community.

The area is underserved in terms of economics, with divisions of class, race, and wealth complicating ideas about organizations crossing religious, political, and social lines to impact the community. Our cluster discussed ideas about youth group events and anti-bullying lectures, but we found that we were focusing on what the church was against instead of what it was for. Given my love for film and my background in film criticism, I proposed that we host an event centered around the screening of the 2017 hit film “Wonder,” and invite the author of the book to speak to the students there. I was familiar with the book and the film because my eleven-year-old son, Adam, had read the story three times, and said everyone should hear its message of kindness! The plan was adopted, a bit skeptically because nothing like this had been done in our area before, so questions remained.

Where would we show the film? How would we fund it? What would the ‘message’ be, other than providing a free screening?

Motivated by the message of the film, choose kindness, I approached the local performance arts theater about hosting the free screening, shared the idea with the City of Hopewell’s Office on Youth coordinator, Shanelle Ebanks, and submitted a proposal through the Speakers Board to author R.J. Palacio. Palacio had written the book about a middle school student named Auggie who has cranio-facial deformities, and experiences the best and worst in his classmates and adults in the community. But when Auggie’s kind and creative spirit infects those around him, people’s hearts and attitudes begin to change and they realize the unique charm of the people around them. Having Palacio speak to our students would carry more weight than one of the local pastors speaking, right?

The local Moose Lodge, the Junior Women’s Club, and Shanelle’s office all responded favorably; after the first few days, we had received pledges close to $10,000, from a diverse group of people and organizations – religious, political, and social. I was referred to a foundation located an hour outside of our town, and after a ninety-second phone conversation, a

PAGE 50

retired dairy farmer named Edward Titmus donated $5,000.

We had the money to contract with the author – days after I’d submitted the proposal.

Then I received a message from the Speakers Board that due to a desire to stay closer to her children, the author was not travelling. Three weeks after we had settled on our plan, we had money, but no speaker, no location, and no license to show the film.

Feeling rather defeated, I was bolstered by Adam’s enthusiasm.

He believed that something would come of this plan, and that everything would work out. I reached out to a film publicist I knew, Corby Pons of Wit PR, who schedules screenings and events for feature films exploring deeper issues, and explained what we were trying to do and the roadblocks I had seen so far. After a few days, Corby wrote back to me and said that he had shared the idea with Lionsgate Studios (who produced “Wonder”), and they were intrigued. Would I send any details I had about the event?

Less than twenty-four hours later, Corby texted me that Bela Vidovic, who plays Auggie’s older sister, Via, in the film, had agreed to come to Hopewell to speak to our audience, for $15,000. He connected me with the licensing film to cover the event and Bela’s agent. Suddenly, our event was back on track! We reached out to the area schools in several counties around the church as well as youth groups and community organizations revolving around youth.

On Maundy Thursday, the agent called to discuss Bela’s travel plans. We settled on our plans and I walked into the sanctuary to officiate our service. My phone rang repeatedly, as the agent called me back, and I was sure she was calling to deliver the news that the Vidovics had changed their minds.

Instead, when I called her back that night, the agent informed me that Bela’s family had decided that they wanted to gift the $15,000, less travel and lodging, back to a charity of my choice! Because we were hosting the event to help our students #ChooseKind, they wanted to actively participate.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Below left: Actress Bela Vidovic of the film “Wonder” (center) with Reverend Jacob Sahms ‘95 and his wife and children.

Below right: Bela receives news of the scholarship, named in her honor, for rising college first-years who are pursuing film as a major.

I proposed that we would create a new fund with the money, to do further events like the one we were doing (but had not even done yet!), and to create a scholarship for rising college first-years who were pursuing film as their major in Bela’s honor. The Vidovics agreed, even to my request that they not tell Bela. I went home and shared the news with my son, Adam; I asked how awesome would it be to walk out of a theater in ten or fifteen years, having just seen a film directed by a recipient of the scholarship. At eleven, and precocious, he turned to me with a gleam in his eye, and asked, “How cool would it be if it was me?”

The theater was filled with over 500 middle-school kids; the volunteers were ready. Adam walked out on stage in front of more than 500 people and introduced the biggest actress to show up in Hopewell in years. The most diverse group of people that our city has seen showed up to enjoy an afternoon of entertainment, and challenge, hearing firsthand from Bela about real-life kids wrestling with disability and feeling left out, moving us all to action. They were there as Bela signed books and posters, answered questions about acting at age sixteen, and encouraged them to #ChooseKind.

We moved forward, with groups registering, and the details surrounding the Beacon Theatre solidifying. Each attendee would receive a free drink and a free popcorn; we prepared discussion guides for groups to take with them and bags of wristbands with #ChooseKind, proposing groups would post their stories of acts of kindness on social media after they left.

The stories in the weeks following have been encouraging – students coming home with stories about acts of kindness and adults recognizing that they are responsible for setting positive examples of Christ-like servanthood. And while we move forward toward the next project, there is still one question left to be answered:

While we still needed another $3,000 to make the event work, I mulled over the fact that we had a mere 100 people registered for a space that held 650. I was still trying to raise the necessary budget, while also reaching out to more and more groups about attending. (The Parable of the Banquet came to mind!) But as the week of the event came, we had hundreds of people registering up until the moment the event began!

What is God going to do next?

– Reverend Jacob Sahms ’95 Wesley United Methodist Church

choose kind.

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

PAGE 51

Julia Lamarre ’19

Julia Lamarre ’19 has always been passionate about helping people with special needs. She is also passionate about theatre and the arts, so when she became eligible to apply for a Portsmouth Abbey Haney Fellowship, she thought it would be perfect to combine the two. She prepared for the fellowship interview with a vague idea of joining a program, already established in Costa Rica, with the goal of helping special needs children to participate in musical theatre.

However, the Costa Rica project became untenable once Julia learned she would not only have to provide her own props and musical instruments, but the program there wasn’t well suited for children with special needs. “I realized I did not have to travel abroad to implement such a program when there was so much I could do in my own community,” Julia says. And so the idea blossomed – why not stage a musical production, closer to home, composed entirely of children with special needs?

Julia’s first-grade music teacher and mentor met at Starbucks, where they talked for four hours about logistics. Her mentor told her to aim for a cast of about seven children, roughly the same age. Julia was enthused to begin the project, and with renewed vigor, she outlined a plan, with some slight modifications: she would direct a musical with a cast of over 10 children of any age, all of whom had special needs. She purchased the rights to Annie: the Musical, and began the process of procuring a venue.

Julia with her aspiring actors

PAGE PAGE5252

The plan was immediately put to the test.

Local schools wouldn’t pass out the flyer because it wasn’t inclusive of the entire district. Churches charged astronomical fees for rental and insurance. Schools required similar fees, with additional costs for janitorial staff and minimum hourly requirements. Finally, after exhausting nearly all of

Julia directing a dance sequence in “Annie”

her options, Southeastern Massachusetts Educational Collaborative agreed to donate its building for her use.

With the location problem solved, Julia went about recruiting a cast. She joined Facebook groups, asked friends in education to spread the word, and pounded the pavement putting up flyers. Here, too, she was met with some resistance; there were a couple of parents who disagreed with her premise, but the number of supporters boosted her spirits and she forged ahead.

On the first sign-up day, however, only four students showed interest. Dismayed at yet another roadblock, but determined, she pushed on. “I sent out countless emails to parents, teachers, and resource centers; word spread really quickly, and I ended up with sixteen kids,” she said. The actors, aged 5-18 and with a wide range of disabilities, were all excited but nervous to begin the process.

The setup flew in the face of everything she had been cautioned about. There were “too many” kids, the age range was too wide, and some disabilities were “too severe.” But Julia was determined to give these students an opportunity to be a part of a mainstream event, and to take center stage.

Julia on opening night with Sarah Pelletier’19 and Head of Modern Language Department Nancy Brzys

The first rehearsal was a mess. It took nearly four hours to get through just the first song, “Hard Knock Life.” There were meltdowns, tantrums, and struggles, from nonverbal children to overwhelming amounts of noise and chaos. Julia held it together until she arrived home, where she cried and thought, “I’ll never be able to do this.”

After much determination and hard work, the project began to take shape. “I had to figure out the best way to accommodate each person without throwing another one off,” she says. “I learned that small groups worked better. And I had to accept that it wouldn’t be perfect.” After working a full 8 a.m .- 5 p.m. job, Julia rushed to rehearsals, maintaining her smile and positive attitude. Once the kids were convinced that Julia was committed for the duration, and as costumes and props were incorporated into rehearsals, the student-actors began to focus and flourish. Each looked out for the other. They made friends. One girl, who at first needed her father on stage to read her lines for her, began speaking.

Parents immediately noticed the change and reported to Julia. Their children were rehearsing at home, practicing dances and going over lines. They looked forward to rehearsals, seeing their friends

and applying themselves to the work.

Some parents drove more than an hour to ensure that their children could take part in this truly special experience.

Opening night was a tearful experience for parents. The audience contributed a suggested donation at the door and filled the room to capacity. The sense of excitement was palpable, and the student actors were charged by the energy in the room.

The play had barely concluded before parents, kids, and friends were asking Julia, “When are we doing this again?”

Although Julia will be in college next year, she plans to continue her efforts to renew the experience. “A real sense of community came from this,” she says. “The kids made friends, the parents made friends.

They all want it to continue.” Donations from the musical totaled $1,600, which Julia plans to use next year along with other grants for which she will apply.

Her goals include hiring a director, introducing more people to the concept, and doubling the cast. And with word of the musical spreading far and wide, it looks like this once far-fetched dream has become a reality.

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

– Amanda Cody Assistant Director of Communications

PAGE 53

Focusing on a Vanishing Breed

by Andrew Califf ’18

PAGE 54

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

PAGE 55

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

PAGE 55

The Bengal tigers of India have dwindled in number due to the

Since the cubs we saw were nearly full grown, they helped their

dense, continually expanding Indian population. Now on the brink

mother bring down a blue bull, and we were able to photograph

of extinction, the majority of these majestic big cats no longer

them eating breakfast. The mother ate first, followed by her off-

roam free, but live among the 1.3 billion people of India in govern-

spring. Using their forepaws for leverage, the cubs tore the skin

ment-regulated national parks and reserves. During my March

to expose what meat there was attached to the ribs. As the cubs

2018 Portsmouth Abbey School break, I spent three weeks on the

ate, they looked almost as large as fully grown males, but their

ground in India with a professional wildlife photographer, local

teeth were still very small in comparison. Rangers and wilderness

guides, and spotters. We logged hundreds of kilometers travel-

guards can easily identify individual tigers based on their stripes

ing over bumpy roads in cars and trucks; through the forests in

and the territory they occupy.

jeeps; in the skies onboard several domestic flights; and on the rivers in ferry motor launches, canoes and local boats, photographing tigers. To find tigers in different locations and habitats, we traveled to many places, including five national parks and reserves: Ranthambhore National Park in Rajasthan, Bandhavgarh National Park, Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, and the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve in West Bengal.

When we initially arrived at our second park, Bandhavgarh National Park, the early morning light was slicing through the dense forest, as an elephant rider, or “mahout,” emerged from the thicket and passed our jeep, searching for a wounded male tiger. Mahouts operate as employees for some of the national parks and reserves, and like the wilderness guards, tourist guides, drivers, and other licensed park workers, are subject to fines and suspensions. They all report to the park rangers, who are educated in

The tigers primarily concentrate in and around the larger parks

how to deal with the endangered tigers and the growing global

such as Ranthambhore, Bandhavgarh, Kanha, and Tadoba. Many

outcry to save them. Upon our arrival, Bandhavgarh park was

of the parks cater to tourism as a source of funding, but they all

empty– not because of the early morning hour, but because re-

maintain “core zones,” restricted areas set aside exclusively for

strictions were in place limiting the number of visitors, in an effort

the tigers and other wildlife. These zones keep as many tigers as

to protect three orphaned tiger cubs. Unlike most major nature

possible away from the locals and tourists, allowing them to thrive

parks and preserves, the government of India intervenes at times

in a wilder natural habitat. At our first stop, Ranthambhore National

to assist Mother Nature. I watched a truck with a spotted deer in

Park, we documented two older females: Arrowhead (who resides

its back bed turn a corner where a wilderness guard waited to tie

near the lush old ruins) and Nuer (who prefers the canyons and

the deer (“breakfast”) down for a mature male who was injured in

rockier areas). Nuer previously mated with Ustad, a male removed

a fight with a rival from a neighboring territory. The injured male

from the park for reportedly killing two

killed the tiger who invaded

forest guards. Because Ustad did not

his territory as well as a fe-

eat either guard, he was not killed but

male tiger, orphaning her

instead removed for research. Arrow-

cubs. The mother, as sole

head is much younger than Nuer at

caretaker

around five years of age, but still an

protects her cubs until they

independent female. In another zone,

go off on their own at about

we observed a breeding female and

two and one-half years of

her two-year-old cubs. Tigers are fully

age. Males remain solitary.

grown at about two and one-half years

derness guards use ma-

and samba deer, but occasionally

PAGE 56

provider,

At Bandhavgarh, the wil-

of age. They mainly hunt spotted deer bring down a large blue bull.

and

houts for spotters because Andrew Califf ’18 in India, March 2018

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

they’re able to get closer to the tigers and move more rapidly through the dense jungle. The lack of dense forests and foliage in Ranthambhore, combined with its heavy tourism, makes it possible for the wilderness guards to use jeeps, instead of elephants to spot and track tigers. Tigers in Ranthambhore, where they have a more open and drier environment, are not afraid of vehicles; they are accustomed to them, understanding that vehicles are not a threat to them and are unlikely to cause them harm.

While still at Bandhavgarh, we observed an unusual situation where two cubs hunted and worked together after leaving their mother. It’s common for cubs to stray from their mother, but highly unusual for them to stay together and work as a team. We also witnessed something equally unusual. For safety, tigers routinely back up to watering holes, but we observed a single female recklessly approaching a depleted watering hole that was dangerously hemmed in on its sides. The wilderness guards charged with protecting the tigers track them and record these kinds of unusual behaviors. Such abnormal behaviors probably result from depleting wild spaces and resources and far too much humantiger interaction. Tigers need to roam wild, and the core zones should be protected, even in the more popular parks such as Ranthambhore. The protection itself is a human-tiger interaction An elephant rider, or “mahout,” searching for a wounded male tiger in Bandhavgarh National Park.

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

PAGE 57 57 PAGE

struggling to find tigers; capturing dramatic light; identifying good positions and backgrounds; and obtaining clear shots, etc. Such are the challenges when dealing with wild animals in their natural habitat; these were amplified in the dense foliage of India’s jungles. Driving along the narrow roads bordered on each side by dense cover, which carve through the jungle, made it difficult to spot tigers. The rangers get frustrated by this as well, and frequently venture A mother tiger and her offspring feasting an a blue bull in Ranthambhore National Park

which impacts the environment and in turn impacts the animals’ behavior. Saving the Bengal tiger from extinction places a great deal of pressure on the Indian people. Many protected reserves post Indian Army soldiers around the parks.

off into the jungle on foot.

More than one billion people of India live in densely populated areas with a significant percentage of the population living at or below the poverty line. With so many people living in poverty, distressed communities are everywhere. These communities encroach on the parks because of the food and resources the

The dense jungles of Kanha (the tiger reserve that allegedly inspired Kipling’s The Jungle Book) also contain Bengal tigers.

Chota Moon, a large male tiger living in a tourist zone there, bears a scar from fighting and killing a much larger competitor and then stealing his mate. We and our local guide tracked the mate and her two, one-year-old male cubs through the jungle and around the hills to their watering hole (shown on the title page of this article). There, the approaching trio slowly forced another set of cubs away from the watering hole. Also at Kanha, a wilderness guard (who was among those surveying the burn-off of the dead

parks offer. This can be seen, in particular, in the Sundarbans – a part of the world’s largest delta formed by the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna. The Sundarbans’ extremely large core protects its delicate mangrove swamp ecosystem, which includes its tigers. Despite the size of its core, interaction still occurs between tigers and locals. In the past, tigers would swim across major channels and go into the villages. But now, with fences snaked around the perimeter of the reserve, the only regular attacks occur inside the reserve when locals enter to pilfer its natural resources.

growth at the edge of the dirt tracks) startled an adult female, causing her to abandon a watering hole and flee into the woods.

We joined our Sundarbans guide in a treat of raw honey drizzled on luchi– a type of fluffy deep- fried pastry and an important part

Tigers naturally flee. They view humans as fellow predators, and because they avoid fighting fellow predators, will only attack a human to protect themselves or their cubs. Violent tiger interactions with humans come mainly from the lack of space, lack of resources, and lack of respect and knowledge.

of a Bengali breakfast. The honey was collected locally and was extremely rich and sweet. We also ate fish and other products produced by the local fishing industry. Our guide explained why tigers in the Sundarbans are infamous: extremely isolated from rangers, tourists, and river traffic, the tigers respond aggressively

Tracking tigers through the jungle was quite an authentic experi-

when faced with humans. In addition, the poor living in the sur-

ence of what wildlife photographers deal with in the field. It was

rounding overcrowded communities encroach on the parks to il-

exhilarating, but it also forced me to deal with the trials and trib-

legally fish, crab, and collect raw honey. The low boats they use

ulations one faces in the dynamic environment of the field, like

to drift down complex networks of waterways spilling through

PAGE 58

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

the river delta are below the banks and an easy drop for a tiger,

prevents angry mobs of villagers from killing the tigers. In many

especially when these boats ply the narrow creeks to hide from

areas, tigers are often killed for simply wandering too close to

park employees. Tiger interactions with humans can escalate,

a village. To appease the villagers, the Sundarbans reserve re-

causing serious injury and death. Tigers fear us because these

cently provided local island communities with flood walls, stone

“man-eaters” are hunted. Their so called taste for blood is merely

pathways, and deeply drilled wells.

a dramatization of how, when a tiger kills a human, it realizes how easy it is to do. The ease of it is what’s important to the animal because energy conservation is an important biological imperative.

All tigers know they’re not always going to catch their prey, and are careful in how much energy they exert in a hunt.

Today’s Bengal tigers face population fragmentation and a significant reduction, perhaps even a complete loss, of their natural habitat. Few of them are truly wild, and despite the best intentions of the government of India, they struggle to exist. There’s only so much land for the people of India (whose numbers are

This same Sundarbans guide was born and raised on the Sundar-

on the rise) and the Bengal tiger (whose numbers are also on

bans Isle of Bali, northwest of the reserve, and voiced the villagers’

the rise, albeit slow and wavering). Luckily for the tiger, both the

sentiment that a tiger reserve is a waste of land when the poverty-

Ranthambhore National Park and the Bandhavgarh National Park

stricken communities could profit from its resources. He continued

were originally retreat palaces, designed as forts in the event of

and explained the villagers have religious reasons for disregard-

an enemy siege. As protected historical sites, the palaces and

ing the reserve’s laws: Sundarbans villagers (almost entirely of

their natural surroundings, where the tigers now roam, escaped

the Hindu or Muslin faith) view a tiger, not as an endangered wild

the influx of emerging communities established to accommodate

animal struggling to survive, but as the demon king Dakshin Rai,

the growing Indian population.

out to eat them. In areas like the Sundarbans, where tensions run high, the government takes steps to protect the tigers.

The future of the tiger is uncertain despite the accomplishments of Project Tiger, a national tiger conservation program. The tiger

Government organizations (which service the reserve) have au-

population is growing and has been on an upward trajectory

thority to pay the villages for improvements and repairs where

since 2006, when there were a mere 1,411 tigers in India. The

tiger sightings occur – in consideration for the villagers allow-

tiger population continues to increase. But so too does the Indian

ing rangers to remove the animals from the village, alive. This

population, with whom the tiger competes for space. For now, the Bengal tiger remains on the endangered IUCN Red List.

In traveling to India to photograph the endangered Bengal tiger, I learned the importance of being patient and lying in wait for the perfect picture, at the perfect moment, and then pouncing on the opportunity. My best photographs are shots of tigers in their most natural environments. I used a Nikon D500 camera, a Sigma 150-600mm camera lens, and a wide angle lens. This experience cemented my passion to travel the world as a photojournalist. Now, a New York University student, I’m working toward a degree in journalism (and anthropology, or other major) and taking photography courses in the different NYU schools.

All photos by Andrew Califf ’18

WINTER Alumni BULLETIN 2019

PAGE 59 59 PAGE

What is your favorite subject?

by Director of Admission Steve Pietraszek ’96 the value of the liberal arts education we

the director of admission, am from the his-

offer here at Portsmouth Abbey.

tory department. Good luck getting all of us to agree on the “best” department.

For more than 90 years, Portsmouth Abbey’s liberal arts curriculum has been pre-

This year is very significant in the history

paring students for lives of significance

of the School as we open our new science

and purpose. A liberal arts curriculum

building. This building is the largest single

covers a variety of subjects, providing

project ever completed on campus, and

Every year

a solid foundation in all areas of inquiry.

the size of it alone makes quite an impres-

We also offer a depth of courses across

sion on every visitor. By adjoining this new

the Office of Admission spends months

departments that focus on a particular

structure to the current Burden Class-

interviewing prospective students from

area of interest. Most importantly, our aca-

room Building and creating a new com-

across the globe. The interview is a re-

demic program will strengthen a student’s

mons area, this has, in the words of the

quired part of the application process, and

ability to write, reason, and communicate

architect, “created a crossroads between

the word “interview” alone is enough to

clearly. Over the course of four years here,

science and the humanities” here on

make most 13- or 14-year olds nervous. It

our students will engage in a problem-

campus. This is central to the academic

shouldn’t. The purpose of these meetings

centered mathematics curriculum, study

philosophy at Portsmouth Abbey School.

is for each side to learn a little bit more

science with physics first, and continue

Not only do we want students to be able

about the other. During the application

on to AP and post-AP offerings. They will

to solve problems, but to wrestle with the

process, we read a lot of material written

study Latin and humanities, which will help

hierarchy of which problems to solve, and

by and about each candidate. We read

develop 21st-century skills while analyzing

why, striving for a deeper understanding

essays, lists of interests and accomplish-

everything from Dante to Marx and Des-

of the human condition.

ments, thoughtful teacher recommenda-

cartes to Milton.

tions, transcripts, and test scores. All of

There are many milestones between a

these can help us assess the interests and

Despite my best attempts to convey the

high school admission interview and a

abilities of each prospective student – but

strength and importance of each depart-

college interview – still more before the

it is the interview that really breathes life

ment to the overall academic experience

first job interview. Through the many op-

into every application.

here at Portsmouth Abbey, I am often

portunities our curriculum presents, our

asked, “Which department is the best?”

students develop fundamental skills to

From my standpoint, an interview is suc-

This is an impossible question for me to

prepare themselves to be life-long learn-

cessful the second I can get a smile and

answer. I know that each and every faculty

ers. We know that as students move on

listen to a student tell me a story about one

member has a passion for his or her de-

to their college experiences and into their

of his or her interests. I always ask about a

partment and a respect for the other aca-

professional lives, they will distinguish

student’s favorite subject and I often hear

demic disciplines. If you look at the School

themselves through their critical thinking

a variety of answers. In fact, over the past

from an administrative level, you will see

and problem-solving abilities. Regardless

three years, enrolled students have been

that our headmaster is from the math de-

of what subjects students prefer when they

evenly split among their answers. Math

partment, our assistant headmaster is

arrive, it is my hope that they will challenge

leads the way with 26% saying it is their

from the science department, our dean of

themselves in all areas of our academic

favorite subject. However, history, English,

faculty is from the humanities department,

program and be open to new ideas, new

and science are not far behind. This speaks

our director of studies is from the classics

areas of inquiry, and even new favorite

to the wide-ranging academic interests our

department, our college counselors are

subjects as they learn and grow here on

students have, but I also believe it affirms

from the English department, and even I,

Cory’s Lane.

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

On behalf of the Portsmouth Abbey School’s Parents’ Association, we would like to extend a warm greeting and to report on how our wonderful parents continue to enrich our thriving organization.

Halfway through our seventh academic year and second as Parents’ Association chairs, we are truly humbled to lead such a vibrant group of parents so fully committed to helping our young men and women grow in knowledge and grace! This year marked a very special milestone for our family as we saw our daughter, MaryBeth, graduate as a member of the Class of 2018. Needless to say, this was a bittersweet moment as we reflected on the great and lifelong friendships established, superb athletic contests witnessed, and the teachings of the Benedictine intellectual traditions bestowed upon her by our blessed monastic community and dedicated faculty. Her Abbey education quite literally was second to none. Furthermore, the transition from the Abbey environment to college has been completely seamless and for that we are grateful but not surprised! Fortunately for us, our son, Ted, is in his third year so we have another year-and-a-half as Portsmouth Abbey School parents. In hindsight, we should have had ten more children all spaced four years apart so this tremendous journey could last into our 80s!

The purpose and mission of the Parents’ Association is to provide opportunities for parents to share their time and talents through engagement at daily school activities, to volunteer at School-sponsored events on and off campus, and to encourage philanthropic support of the Annual Fund. These efforts strengthen our beautiful school and directly impact the student and parent experience. As many of you have seen firsthand, the exuberance and commitment of our Form chairs is what leading by example means and affects the success and growth of the role of the Parents’ Association.

A personal testimonial of success we have witnessed is the record-breaking parental support of the Annual Fund. In the past three years alone, parent support has reached new heights year over year, which is a clear and unmistakable indicator that parents of Abbey students are engaged. Our parents’ commitment to and awareness of the School’s mission fully supports all aspects of the unique education that their children are receiving.

The commitment from our current parents is also seen in the desire to increase parent programming throughout the year. We continue to offer new ways parents can participate, and the Association now welcomes parents to campus each term for a fully integrated event. Each fall, Parents’ Weekend

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begins with a friendly reception where parents and faculty have the opportunity to socialize in a relaxed and welcoming environment. Following this event, faculty showcase students in class, parents are welcomed to the All School Assembly, individual parent/teacher conferences are held for all parents to receive personal feedback on their child, and we see the balance in the students’ day as we watch the many activities outside of the classroom. This January, the Parents’ Association once again hosted Winter Family Day. New last year, Winter Family Day is designed to add a family event during the Winter Term as we have in the fall and spring terms. In addition to athletic teams competing at home, the college counseling seminar for Form IV and V parents took place Friday evening through Saturday morning, and a faculty/parent book discussion extended over Saturday lunch.

Parents always marvel over the texts that students read and analyze at the Abbey, so this year’s book selection was Shakespeare’s, The Tempest, chosen from the Fourth-Form humanities course. The discussion was lead by Dr. Khalil Habib P ’20 and faculty from the English and humanities departments. It is truly amazing that the faculty offers more of their time to provide an opportunity for the parents to be part of their child’s experience.

While parent engagement is best when it happens on campus with our children or at events with each other and the faculty, formal and frequent communication from the School is also important.

Like our children, our days and weeks are filled with tasks at hand, so routine reminders of what is happening on a daily basis helps parents stay connected with each other even though we may be miles apart. Beginning last year and continuing this year, parents receive a monthly newsletter from the Association titled, “Communitas,” which provides a message from the chairs of the Association as well as Form-specific information covering current and upcoming events and notices. The Form chairs develop their messages in order to keep their fellow parents connected to the happenings at School and to assist in planning for each month. Staying informed and engaged has a positive impact on everyone’s Abbey experience.

Looking ahead to our goals as chairs of the Portsmouth Abbey Parents’ Association, we want our parents to think about how they can become involved. In case you haven’t noticed, we have been truly blessed with parents who work hard to support the Association and we are thankful for all our parents who make up this group. We have so much in common with our love for the Abbey and everything it stands for, and it is our commitment to continue to work with all of you to support our children as they receive this special gift of an Abbey education.

Chris and Deb Falvey P ’18 ’20 2018-19 Parents’ Association Chairs

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

OUR ADVICE TO PARENTS

1.

Get to know the faculty of Portsmouth Abbey School. The closer you become to these gifted professionals the more you’ll understand the individual personality and teaching style of each educator. We have found that this provides direction if you need to speak with the faculty member about your child. Do this for yourself as well because who doesn’t love getting to know wonderful people?

Our 2018-19 Parents’ Association Chairs

2.

Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Deb Falvey with their children MaryBeth’18 and Ted’20

Our College Counseling department led by director Mrs. Corie McDermott-Fazzino along with Dr. Michael Bonin, Ms. Kate Smith and Mrs. Lisa Kerr, simply put, are outstanding! Get to know them. Their section of the School’s web-

Our 2018-19 Form Chairs

site is very thorough and informative. Third- and Fourth- Form parents start by reading the “Binder” and by the time you are having Fifth- and SixthForm meetings with your child’s counselor you will be well versed on what your child is responsible for; guide them but make sure it is their process!

3.

Form VI Mr. and Mrs. Claude and Val Franco P’15 ‘19

Get involved in the smallest way. Contact your Form chairs; they will help you find your niche.

Form V Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Julie Chojnowski P’20

Parent Participation in the Annual Fund Form IV Mr. and Mrs. Marshall and Mary Ann Heaven P’21

Form III Mr. and Mrs. Tony and Stefanie Polgar P’22

FY 2019 as of January 2019

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1. Cortazzo Administration Building 2. Manor House/Office of Admission 3. Alumni House 4. McGuire Fine Arts Building 5. Athletics Complex 6. Auditorium 7. Baseball and Softball Diamonds 8. Boathouse 9. Bookstore 10. Church of St. Gregory the Great 11. Burden Classroom Building 12. Stillman Dining Hall 13. Equestrian Center 14. Healey and Sheehan Fitness Center 15. Football Field 16. The Aquidneck Club (formerly Carnegie Abbey Club) 17. Grotto 18. Hockey Rink 19. Nesbitt Infirmary 20. St. Thomas More Library 21. Loft 22. Sailing Facilities 23. Regan Lecture Hall 24. Science Building 25. Soccer Fields 26. Solar House 27. Squash Center 28. St. Aelred’s House 29. St. Benet’s House 30. St. Brigid’s House 31. St. Hughs House 32. St. Leonard’s House 33. St. Martin’s House 34. St. Mary’s House 35. Student Center and Tuck Shop 36. Tennis Courts 37. Carlos X. Araujo ’96 Memorial Track 38. St. Hilda’s Turf Field and Lower Playing Fields 39. Wind Turbine 40. Winter Garden

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PORTSMOUTH ABBEY SCHOOL’S NEW CAMPUS MAP P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

With the redesign of the School website this year came a new interactive campus map that can be viewed on the Admission>Apply tab of the site. We were delighted to be able to add the location of our new state-of-the-art science building (#24) along with the launch of the website. Please visit the interactive map (www.portsmouthabbey.org/apply/campus-map) to learn more about the history of our buildings on campus.

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Portsmouth Abbey Returns to Asia

The Hong Kong Reception, attended by (l to r): Sondra and Tom ’89 Keenan, Tsz Chiu Guan ’07, Dan McDonough, Chris and Erin Behnke, Matt Walter, Eunice and John ’86 Yung, and Lianghong Li and Ju Zhao P’20. Not pictured: Albert Hon ’93.

In 2016, Headmaster Dan McDonough, Board Chair Chris Behnke ’81 and Director of Development Matt Walter traveled to Asia with the aim of enhancing engagement with our Asian community by strengthening relationships with alumni and their parents, building on relationships with our current families, and increasing support of the School’s mission. The trip included an introduction of the School’s capital campaign for a new Science Building. Our Asian community responded generously with commitments to the new building totaling in excess of half a million dollars. A large part of this support came from more than 30 of the School’s Chinese families from the Classes of 2014 to 2020 who decided to form the Chinese Parents’ Chapter of the School’s Parents’ Association and combine their gifts to name one of the classrooms in the new building.

Last November, Dan, Chris and Matt returned to Asia to thank our Chinese and Korean families for their generosity and to continue strengthening relationships with our Asian community. The 2018 itinerary included return visits to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul, and added stops in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Receptions, dinners, and individual meetings highlighted the trip in addition to cultural visits to Tiananmen Square in Beijing and the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall and

PAGE 66

Pearl River in Guangzhou. Attendees at each stop were greeted with remarks from Dan and Chris along with a presentation on the progress of the campaign and the new building.

The project was again well received and the Chinese Parents’ Chapter, which included new families for the Classes of 2021 and 2022, increased their communal gift to $650,000. With additional participation from more new families in the following months, it is anticipated that the total gift from the Chinese Parents’ Chapter will reach $750,000 which would allow it to name a lab and a classroom. Our Korean Parents’ Chapter also embraced the project, committing $100,000 to name the firstfloor Informal Learning Space.

Both trips to Asia reflect the School’s commitment to growing its relationship with the Abbey’s international community.

School representatives traveled to Europe in January 2018 and held a reception in London, and a visit to Central America is in the works for the fall of 2019. With each trip, the School’s goal is to increase engagement among alumni and their parents, and our current and future families, leading to support for projects like the Science Building, while also celebrating the special connection between the Abbey and its international communities.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Dinner in Guangzhou was held at Bei Yuan Cuisine Restaurant, owned by current parents Jinming Liang and Jaili Li P’20.

The Guangzhou Reception, attended by: (standing, from left) Jason Ding P’18, Jeffrey Liang (sibling), Jinming Liang P’20, Charlie Zheng P’20, Matt Walter, Simon Feng P’21, Chris Behnke ’81, Richard Zhang (guest), Arthur Zhang (guest), Tiancum Hu P’18, and Chunjie Lin P’16; (seated) Rossum Chen (interpreter), Canny Li (guest), Juan Huang P’21, Lili Li P’20, Sally Li P’20, Kate Yang P’19, Lijuan Zhou P’16, and Amber Huang P’18.

Left: New Board of Regents member Jason Ding P’18 addresses the gathering in Guangzhou.

The Shanghai Reception, attended by: (back row, from left) Mingxu Chen P’22, Xuerun Yao P’22, Zhenglin Shi P’20, Feng Dong P’21, Zheyong Chen P’21, Riqing Li P’17, Feng Lu P’20, Ziqiang Wang P’22, Xingqun Zhang P’22, Yuan Gao; (middle row) Yingjun Yuan P’22, Yu Zhou P’22, Sabrina Zeng P’20; Yuhong Gong P’21, Xiaobo Lu P’21, Sarah Zhou P’17, Ying Li P’20, Yumei Jiang P’22, Carolyn Liu P’22, Maggie Yin P’22; (seated) Dan McDonough, Chris Behnke ’81, Erin Behnke and Jason Ding P’20.

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The Korean Reception, attended by: (from left) Won Jun Shon P’22, Jinsu Park P’22, Hwan Oh P’19 ’20, Hyunjin Kim P’19, Matt Walter, MinJoo Jung P’21, Dan McDonough, Junghwa Kim P’21, Chris Behnke, Hye Soo Shin P’19 ’20, Kyoung Hwa Kwak P’22, Heejung Yeum P’20, Seung Jae Lee P’22, Hae Won Choi P’22, Myung Chae Jung P’20, Minseok Kang P’21, Seung-il Kim P’21.

Neil Liu P’21 and Katherine Shen P’21 present Dan McDonough with a gift from the Beijing community.

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Welcoming remarks in Beijing by Yanping Qiu P’19 and Julie Liu P’20.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Above, middle: The Beijing Reception, attended by: (standing, from left) Yi Dong P’14, Julie Liu P’20, Yanping Qiu P’19, Hongjun Yu P’16, Jason Ding P’18, Lin Cao P’17, Neal Liu P’21, Haibo Yang P’22, Xiaohui Deng (guest), Tom Ji P’21, Lu Miao (guest); (seated) Dongmei Zhao P’19, Yu Chen P’19, Min Yang P’16, Xiaolei Sun P’19, Matt Walter, Dan McDonough, Chris Behnke, Li Wang P’17, Katherine Shen P’21, Lu Nie P’22, Eva Tan P’18, Nancy Lee (guest).

Not pictured: Danni Lyu P’21.

PLANNED

GIVING

“My Portsmouth education opened my eyes to what was possible. We want to help ensure that the School will continue to open the eyes of young men and women for generations to come.”

Matthew Flynn ’65, a kid from a large family in the small town of Middlebush, New Jersey, arrived on Cory’s Lane in the fall of 1961. The education he received at Portsmouth was transformative.

“The Priory opened opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The education I received at the Priory was the foundation for my studies at Yale, service in the U.S. Navy, and my studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School. It enabled me to advise fine organizations, including the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, The Hearst Corporation, Nike, and many others. I also drew on my education and experiences at Portsmouth in serving as the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and running for public office.”

Accordingly, when Matt and his wife, Mary, were reevaluating their estate plans following Matt’s retirement, Portsmouth Abbey School stood out as a priority for the Flynns. “The sacrifices and guidance of a small group of monks and lay teachers gave me opportunities in life that I would not have imagined otherwise. They were in place thanks to the generosity of those who had gone before me. A planned gift through our estate is a chance to honor their work and the school they built.

We are keeping it completely unrestricted so that Portsmouth can apply our gifts to whatever will be most meaningful at that moment; a moment which we trust will be many years away!”

Gifts from an estate are an easy way to honor those institutions that have had a meaningful influence on your life while making a significant impact. At Portsmouth Abbey School, we honor those who have made provisions for the School by enrolling them in the Hall Manor Society. Senior Development Officer Andrew Rose (arose@portsmouthabbey.org, 401-643-1280) will be happy to assist you or your estate planning advisor with everything from a simple account beneficiary designation, to language to be inserted in a document, to more complex estate-planning strategies.

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Abbot’s Reception 2018

Christmas cheer filled the room as more than 200 members of the Portsmouth Abbey community gathered at the picturesque New York Yacht Club for the annual Abbot’s Reception on Wednesday, December 5. Surrounded by friends and family, guests enjoyed cocktails and conversation with former classmates, parents, faculty and our monastic community as Christmas carols played in the background.

This year’s reception was extra special, as our community was introduced to our new Prior Administrator, Fr. Michael Brunner, O.S.B, and was presented with a video on the brand new Science Building, which opened for classes upon the students’ return from Christmas break.

We extend a sincere thank you to all of our hosts, patrons and attendees who helped us continue this Abbey tradition and welcomed in the Christmas season with us. Please mark Tuesday, December 10, on your calendar for Abbot’s Reception 2019!

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Top left: Abbot Matthew Stark welcomes and blesses the guests.

Top right: Headmaster Dan McDonough and Arway Boker ’02 Bottom right: Frank Loughran ’15 and his parents, Siobhan and Frank

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Alumni from the ‘80s with Headmaster Dan McDonough and Chairman of the Board of Regents Chris Behnke ’81

Save the Date!

Abbot’s Reception 2019 Tuesday, December 10 We hope to see you there!

Alumni celebrating the spirit of the Christmas season with fellow Ravens

Dom Joseph Byron, O.S.B., and Board of Regents Member Meg Healey P ’91 GP ’19 ’21

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FALL 2018 ATHLETICS athletics awards Boys’ Cross-Country Coaches Award: David Appleton ‘20 MIP: Carl Ji ‘21 Captains Elect: David Appleton ‘20, Gavin Gibbons ‘20, Matt Liuzza ‘20 Overall Record: 9-3 EIL Record: 5-2; 4th Place EIL NEPSTA 5th of 24 Teams Girls’ Cross-Country Coaches Award: Margot Appleton ‘21 MIP: Mia Wright ‘19 Captains Elect: Margot Appleton ‘21, Avery Korzeniowski ‘21 David Appleton ’20

Overall Record: 8-4 EIL Record: 6-3; 5th Place EIL NEPSTA 6th of 27 Teams Field Hockey

Girls’ Field Hockey Trophy: Isabelle Fournier ‘19 Sarah Pelletier ’19

MIP: Riley Carter ‘19 Captains Elect: Izzy Zangari ‘20, Ella Stookey ‘21 Overall Record: 9-7-1

EIL Record: 5-3-1

Football John M. Hogan Football Trophy: Jonas Echeandia ‘19 MIP: Chris Zaiser ‘20 Captains Elect: Steven Crabtree ‘20, Will Crowley ‘20, Shane Hoey ‘20, Dan McKenna ‘20, Josh Plumb ‘20 Evergreen Record: 5-3 Boys’ Soccer Williams Franklin Sands Memorial Soccer Trophy: Thomas Kirker ‘19 MIP: Evan Boyd ‘19 Captain Elect: Aidan Brown ‘20 Overall Record: 3-15-1

EIL Record: 3-10-1

Girls’ Soccer Girls Soccer Trophy: Lilias Madden ‘19 MIP: Cam Holley ‘20 Captains Elect : Alyssa Civiello ‘20, Cam Holley ‘20, Maddie Knudson ‘20, Mac Macomber ‘20 Overall Record: 2-13-1

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EIL Record: 2-8-1

Margot Appleton ’21

Thomas Kirker ’19

junior varsity awards Boys’ Golf Coach’s Award: Rodolfo Castillo ‘20 MIP: Michael Hyder ‘21 Captains Elect: Rodolfo Castillo ‘20, Dean Simeone ‘20

Boys’ JV Cross Country: Michael Loftus ‘22

EIL Record: 1-9

Girls’ JV Cross Country: Sophie Zhang ‘22

Volleyball

Field Hockey: Emily Hyder ‘19

Coach’s Award: Sarah Pelletier ‘19

Football: Evan Ventura ‘21

MIP: Gwen Bragan ‘22 Captains Elect: Nicole Huyer ‘20, Julia Sisk ‘21 Overall Record:1-13 EIL Record; 0-7

The Portsmouth Abbey Junior Varsity Award is given to the athlete who best demonstrates the spirit of Abbey Athletics. The award recognizes hard work, individual improvement, sportsmanship, and a willingness to do what is best for the team.

Boys’ JV Soccer: Ryan Jo ‘20 Boys’ JV B Soccer: Will Bruguiere ‘22 Girls’ JV Soccer: Chiara O’Connor ‘19 Volleyball: Sarah Dugal ‘21 Isabelle Fournier ’19

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOUIS WALKER III (www.louiswalkerphotography.com/Sports)

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POST-SEASON HONORS Tony Hooks ’19

Jonas Echeandia ’19

Boys’ Cross-Country

Football - Evergreen League

David Appleton ‘20: New England Division 3 Champion,

Jonas Echeandia ‘19: All-New England, All-League

EIL MVP, All-League

Tony Hooks ‘19: All-New England, All-League

Matt Liuzza ‘20: All-New England, All-League Axel Keller ‘21: Honorable Mention

Chris Franco ‘19: All-League Danny McKenna ‘20: All-League Harry Skakel ‘19: All-League

David Sun ‘19: Honorable Mention

Will Crowley ‘20: Honorable Mention Antony Ramirez ‘19: Honorable Mention

Girls’ Cross-Country

Matt Spear ‘21: Honorable Mention

Margot Appleton ‘21: New England Division 3 Champion, EIL MVP, All-League Diane McDonough ‘19: Honorable Mention

Boys’ Soccer Aidan Brown ‘20: All League Thomas Kirker ‘19: All League, NEPSSA Senior All-Star Game

Boys’ Golf

Tommy Murphy ‘19: Honorable Mention

Rodolfo Castillo ‘20: All-League Dean Simeone ‘20: All-League

Girls’ Soccer

Tommy McSparren ‘19: Honorable Mention

Lilias Madden ‘19: All League Rory O’Neill ‘19: Honorable Mention

Field Hockey

Camille Holley ‘20 and Mackenzie Macomber ‘20: NEPSWA Junior All-Star Game

Faith Cournoyer ‘19: All-League Isabelle Fournier ‘19: All-League

Volleyball

Izzy Zangari ‘20: Honorable Mention

Nicole Huyer ‘20: Honorable Mention

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOUIS WALKER III (www.louiswalkerphotography.com/Sports) and Bill Rakip

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

Rodolfo Castillo ’20

Lilias Madden ’19

ATHLETIC CODE OF CONDUCT Matt Liuzza ’20

m Honor visiting teams, value and encourage officials and spectators as Abbey guests and treat them as such. m Recognize that officials have a difficult job and that Abbey players, coaches and spectators will not question nor criticize the decision of any official. m We value and encourage enthusiastic and positive spectator support of Abbey Athletics.

We never criticize or direct negative comments to opposing players. m Through team work, fair play and emotional control Abbey student/athletes reflect the strong moral character and pride of the Portsmouth Abbey School.

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MILESTONES

BIRTHS 1994 A boy, Guillermo Estanislao, to Meche and Alejandro Perez Duque November 11, 2018 1995/1996 A boy, Mateo Jose Christoffel, to Daniel and Tita Bacardi Christoffel September 25, 2018 1997 A girl, Thea Lenzi, to Emma and Michael Anselmi July 14, 2018 2001 A boy, Henry Christopher Heins, to Kate and John Heins July 18, 2018 2002 A girl, Sorchae Scanlan, to David and Elizabeth Ribera Scanlan November 12, 2017

2007 A girl, India Garthwaite Klietmann, to Lavinia and Max Klietmann November 1, 2018 A girl, Madeline Barry Koenig, to Max and Katie Coaty Koenig September 30, 2018 2009 A boy, Henri William Pelletier, to Joshua Pelletier and Josephine O’Reilly September 19, 2018 2010 A girl, Pearl Eveline Tracy, to Christian and Amelia Bradley Tracy October 10, 2018 A girl, Isla Jane Vichaivattana, to Tim Vichaivattana and Sarah Savoie September 4, 2018 2010 A boy, Patterson James MacGuire, to Alex and Pierce MacGuire January 18, 2019

Mila Tamburo holding new brother Hunter, son of Lahna Son-Cundy ’05

Thea Lenzi Anselmi, daughter of Emma and Michael Anselmi ’97

India Garthwaite Klietmann, daughter of Max Klietmann ’07

2004 A girl, Florence Scott Robbins, to Avi and Daphne Nebergall Robbins August 31, 2018 2005 A girl, Vera Lee Beaulieu, to Tommy and Jennifer Beaulieu September 22, 2018 A boy, Hunter Tamburo, to Joseph Tamburo and Lahna Son-Cundy August 25, 2018 2006 A boy, Emmett Louis Raposo, to Liliana and Kyle Raposo November 28, 2018 A girl, Mackenzie Rose Smith, to Brenden and Abigail Rich Smith May 26, 2018

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

MILESTONES

Baby Guillermo Estanislao Perez Duque with his siblings and mom, Meche

Josie O’Reilly ’09 (second from left) and Sophie O’Reilly’ 06 visited English teachers Kate Smith and Laureen Bonin (holding Josie’s son, Henri) last fall.

Amelia Bradley Tracy ’10 at baby Pearl’s baptism with Godfather Andrew Parke, dad Christian Tracy, and Godmother Cat Malkemus Caplin ’10

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Abigail Rich Smith ’06 with husband Brenden and baby Mackenzie Rose

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WEDDINGS 1969 Pierre Whalon to Hélène Teneu August 25, 2018 1970 Sky Schrode to Joan Simonton 2018 1985 Thomas Hopkins to Michelle Reagan Madonna June 29, 2018 1997 Andrew Gontarz to Amy Logue October 6, 2018 1998 Ashley Hart to Lauren LaValle September 28, 2018 2001 Tom Winter to Beth Hanrahan January 12, 2019

Caroline Vollertson ’02 and her husband, Barclay Gaston

2002 Justin Bauer to Perri Hillsberg October 26, 2018 Caroline Vollertsen to Barclay Gaston September 15, 2018

Ashley Hart ’98’s wedding included: Back row (l-r): Sean Walsh Ramm ’02, Jose Antonio Belismelis ’02, Eliza Greenman Burlingame ’03, Alexander Forbes IV ’02, Justin Hart ’02, Alexandra Hart ’00, Janine Graebe ’98, John Jay Mouligne ’01, Leah Murphy ’00, Michael Mulligan ’02, Alexandra Goldberg, and Mathew Kavanagh ’98; Front row; Lauren LaValle and Ashley Hart ’02. *Styled by Janine Graebe ‘98

Patrick Meehan ’07 with his bride, Mary Bilodeau, on their wedding day

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

2003 Bob Peckham to Devyn Lee July 20, 2018 2004 Jason Bazarsky to Hadley Steel July 28, 2018 Chris Fleming to Jeremy Crouthamel September 21, 2018 Gretchen McDonough to Coby Addison July 7, 2018 Michael Reid to Sarah Melrose September 22, 2018 Susan Willis to Casey Claborn July 14, 2018 2005 Emma Greenman to Robert Culver September 21, 2018 2006 Julie Dufresne to Eric Ross July 28, 2018 Trevor Brice to Jessica Bordner June 23, 2018

Gretchen McDonough ’04 with her husband, Coby Addison, on their wedding day

Isabel Burnham to Sebastian Kandell on September 3, 2018 2007 Anna Buckley to Nick Kendrick August 24, 2018 Liz McCarthy to Will Calder June 23, 2018 Patrick Meehan to Mary Bilodeau November 10, 2018 2011 Sean Morrissey to Shay Lynn Reilly on January 5, 2019 2012 Brian O’Connor to Kelsey Stecklow September 1, 2018

Brian O’Connor ‘12 and his bride, Kelsey Stecklow

Thomas Hopkins ’85 and his bride, Michelle Reagan Madonna-Hopkins

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Liz McCarthy ’07’s wedding included: front row (l-r): Alex Hood ’04, Maeve Condon ’07, Michelle LeMeur ’07, Liz Bergman ’05, Cornelia Vaillancourt ’07, Liz McCarthy ’07, KK Behan ’08, Caroline Regan Hessberg ’07, Susan Skakel ’09, Molly McCarthy ’00 with her two sons, and Margaret Power ’08; Back row: Kathleen Timmons ’10, Maggie McCarthy ’08, Jonny White ’07, Mac Regan ’68, and Priscilla Benkhart ’07.

Jason Bazarsky ’04’s wedding included: (l-r) Zach Bazarsky ’07, Matt Corser ’04, Nick Micheletti ’04, Allie Micheletti ’05, Kate Dennis ’05,Josh Parks ’05, Bridget Royer ’05, Garrett Thompson ’05, Whitney Connell ’04, Rosie Fulton ’05, Craig Bazarsky ’05, Kim Thomas ’05 and Sean Galvin ’04 (in front).

Isabel Burnham ’06 and her husband, Sebastian Kandell, on their wedding day

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Emma Greenman ’05’s wedding guests included: (l-r) Pat Bresnahan ‘06, Alex Sparks Rautiola ‘04, Graham Sparks ‘06, John Feitelberg ‘06, Elizabeth Bergman ‘05, Emma Greenman Culver ‘05, Eliza Greenman Burlingame ‘04, and Brenny Kinnane ‘07

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

MILESTONES

NECROLOGY Rose Andre-Johnson Mother of John Andre ’72, Robert Andre ’74, and Charles Andre ’76 July 2, 2018 Carly Augustis-Kokoni ’12 January 2019

Augustine C. Dalton ’53 June 25, 2018 David Dec ’01 Brother of Jaymes Dec ’96 and Jeffrey Dec ’97 September 22, 2018 Bruno de Landevoisin ’79 November 14, 2018

Robert M. Barnes ’68 September 30, 2018

James C. Ferrer ’66 Brother of Thomas Ferrer ’60 October 19, 2018

Anne Birgbauer Grandmother of Karl Jackson ’18 and Ian Jackson ’20 October 25, 2018

Louis A. Fisher, Jr. ’54 May 7, 2017

Keith C. Botsford ’44 August 19, 2018

Richard C. Fremantle ’54 November 13, 2018

Romana Carr Oblate and friend of Portsmouth Abbey July 31, 2018

Judy Cavalier Hamilton Grandmother of Andrew Busch ’20 December 27, 2018

Carroll J. Cavanagh ’60 Cousin of the late John Cavanagh ’58 and Lawrence Cavanagh ’61, and uncle of Jose Juan Cebrian ’90 and C. Brady Cebrian ’94 July 18, 2018 Stanislaw Ciechanowski ’44 October 24, 2018 Christine Chisholm Grandmother of Christopher Shonting ’98 July 9, 2018

Edward D. Impink ’58 September 24, 2018 Marshall E. Lamenzo Brother of John Lamenzo ’63 July 22, 2018 Luiz M. Machado Father of John Machado ’95 December 25, 2018

James G. Conzelman, Jr. ’56 January 7, 2019

Peter L. MacLellan, Sr. ’42 Brother of the late George MacLellan ’39 and father of Patrick MacLellan ’72 June 3, 2018

Cathy Coughlin Mother of Christopher Abbate ’88 and grandmother of Eloise Abbate ’20 December 24, 2018

Doreen Ann MacMillan Mother of Stephen MacMillan ’82 and Kevin MacMillan ’90 December 9, 2018

Edward J. Craig Former Portsmouth Abbey School faculty member, father of Grenville Craig ’59, Franklin Craig ’76, grandfather of Cristina Wurster ’98, Karina Craig Pinder ’01, Cedric Craig ’07, Alexandra Morrison ’15, and Jacqueline Morrison ’18 July 19, 2018

Evelyn Marano Mother of Geoffrey Marano ’06 August 22, 2018 Margaret J. Mataronas Mother of Gregory Mataronas ’99 and Brandilyn Mataronas ’04 November 2, 2018

James F. Mooney, Jr. ’48 Uncle of David Denison ’71 and Andrew Denison ’74 July 30, 2018 Robert W. Morey, Jr. Father of Edward B. Morey ’94 January 18, 2019 James G. Morrell, Esq. ’68 September 22, 2018 James F. Murphy ’80 October 3, 2018 Glennice F. Newhouse Grandmother of Christine Gullison ’02 and Edward Gullison ’06 July 3, 2018 Charles A. Pagès ’81 Brother of Jean Pagès ’77, Pierre Pagès ’78, and the late Jacques Pagès ’82 November 28, 2018 Rodrigo Guito Perez IV ’85 October 30, 2018 Edwina P. Powers Mother of James F. Powers ’79 and grandmother of Rachael Powers ’13 and Sarah Powers ’13 December 10, 2018 Dr. Thomas V. Sollas, Jr. Father of Thomas Sollas ’85 August 20, 2018 Alfred J. Torruella Father of Luis Torruella ’84 July 15, 2015 Edgard Turnier, M.D. Father of Meghan Turnier Patterson ’97 December 27, 2018 Chan-Hwa Yao ‘70 Father of Kathryn Yao ’10 March 8, 2015

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IN MEMORIAM

JAMES C. FERRER ’66

ROBERT McKINNY BARNES, JR. ’68

On October 11th, 2018, James Ferrer passed away in Quiogue, New York, after a battle with cancer. He was 70 years old. Born in Manhattan, he attended The Buckley School and Portsmouth Priory before graduating from Beloit College in 1970. He completed his post-graduate studies at Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1980.

Jim had a distinguished career as an independent elementary school educator and administrator. Beginning as a Latin teacher he moved on to leadership positions, serving as assistant headmaster of The Buckley School and headmaster of The Country School, East Woods School and The Hampton Day School. His favorite part of the job was greeting every student with a firm handshake and encouragement at the start of each school day. One of his fifth- grade students wrote in a letter to him at the time of his departure from East Woods School, “When I shake your hand every morning, I know the thing that is really big about you is your heart.”

After his career in education, he worked as a real estate broker with Sotheby’s International. In recent years, he helped to establish the Shinnecock Hills Education Fund, which has been renamed in his honor.

Jim is survived by his wife Jeanne, his sons Bowe and Andrew, his grandsons Nico, Hudson and Archie, his granddaughter Josephine and three of his siblings, Tom, Linda and Molly; he was predeceased by his brother Joe. Close friend Jamie McGuire’70 wrote, “A distinguished headmaster, real estate broker, and, in his early years at Buckley moonlighting on a small salary, ‘the best educated bartender in New York’ at Michael McCarty’s Swells. Dapper dresser. Longtime board member of the Southampton Bathing Corporation.

Came to The Brook dinner in memory of Fr. Hilary in 2011 and was last on campus for D. Damian’s funeral.

Lovely guy!”

Classmate Frank Scotti added,“At the Priory, Jim was a great friend and stabilizing influence. Unforgettable person. Thanks for all your kindness, Jim.” Portsmouth Abbey extends its prayers and condolences to the Ferrer family.

Rob “Hunky” Barnes collapsed while working out at his Manhattan gym and died of a massive heart attack on September 30th.

A standout football lineman and New England Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, Rob was a charismatic and beloved campus figure.

Crowds filled the old Carriage House to cheer his matches. As Mac Regan ’68 recalled, Rob was not so much possessed of wrestling technique as he was of brute strength. His “technique” was to look his (often much larger) opponent in the eye, approach him across the mat, wrap his arms around him in a massive bear hug, and, usually quite quickly, topple him to the floor and proceed to the pin. The spectators would cheer uproariously at his triumphs, and at one match History Master and Coach William “Uncle Billy” Crimmins darted onto the mat after a spectacular pin and inserted a ten dollar bill into Rob’s tights to the delight of the crowd.

Rob started in St. Benet’s but moved to St. Bede’s for his VI Form year, where D. Hilary promptly made him a house prefect. A perplexed Father Hilary once wondered why Rob, alone among prefects, never gave a check, or demerit.

He had a more effective means of discipline, and was wildly popular with his charges given his innate kindness and hilarious humor. Another battleground with Father Hilary came when Rob, serving House Mass, declined to receive communion. Fr. Hilary questioned him on this refusal, and Rob explained that he wasn’t sure he believed in the Real Presence. Later that evening, a stern Father Hilary knocked on his door, said he had discussed the matter with the Headmaster, Fr. Leo, and henceforth Rob would be held over one day for every time he refused to receive the Blessed Sacrament. Hereafter, Rob complied! He was, in fact, a somewhat idiosyncratic but devout Catholic, who when in town often attended the solemn Mass with Michelle and me at the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, most recently on Easter Sunday last.

Funny stories about Rob abound. When an assistant football coach suspected him of slacking when he took two days off to attend Expo ’67 as part of Fr. Hilary’s Arts & Civilization course (colloquially known as “A & C”), the coach inflicted a dozen extra sprints on Rob at the end of a long practice on his return, and taunted him, “So Barnes, how do you like your Arts and Crafts trip now?” At Woodstock, Rob was the only attendee dressed in a Lacoste polo shirt, soon lost his shoes, and, upon espying the thin bulgar wheat gruel being dispensed by young hippie women at the Free Kitchen, insisted, po-

Photo courtesy of The Easthampton Star PAGE 82

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IN MEMORIAM

Rob (far right) with Vinnie Buonanno ’62 (left) and Chris Hoeffel ’68 at the Clarke Cooke House in Newport

Rob remained close to Portsmouth, attending receptions, alumni weekends and Portsmouth Institutes. The last time he was on campus was for Father Damian’s funeral, with whom he remained on good terms.

He took quiet pleasure in the fact that, after fifty years, he still referred to Abbot Matthew as “Father Matthew,” and Abbot Matthew still addressed him as “Barnes.”

After Rob’s death, tributes poured in from his Portsmouth friends.

Christopher Buckley ’70 emailed that he had lit a candle for him in Strasbourg Cathedral. Nion McEvoy ‘70 wrote from San Francisco that Rob “was a natural humorist, a great friend and a great companion the tiny universe that was ours in St. Bede’s.” And Michael Garvey ’70 wrote that he would attend Mass for Rob and light a candle in the Grotto at Notre Dame, adding, “I can already hear him arguing about architecture with Father Hilary in Heaven.” A delightful image!

litically incorrectly, that we find the nearest diner for a proper “country breakfast.” After transferring (after numerous misadventures, such as approaching the White House guard gate with Bill Greene ‘68 at the November ’69 Moratorium protest wearing a gas mask and asking to speak to “Mr. Nixon”), from Georgetown to Cornell to study architecture, Rob acquired a used Cadillac and decided a bullet hole in the door on the driver’s side would add a certain je ne sais quoi. Borrowing Peter Raho ‘70’s pistol, he created said hole, but, at that early stage in his design career, neglected to consider that, with the window down, this would incur the sound of shattered glass, not to mention shredded bucket seats.

After working for several firms in his early career, Rob and Chris Coy ’69 founded Barnes Coy Associates and have built over 350 homes and other projects in the Hamptons, around the country and in several foreign countries. A committed Modernist, Rob’s distinguished designs can be viewed on the Barnes Coy website. At his funeral at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in East Hampton, Chris Coy spoke movingly. “The most important thing to say about Rob is what a great architect he was. Never repeating himself or ceasing to innovate, he loved the design process and often spent long hours in the office alone on weekends, perfecting his plans. Another important thing to say about Rob was how deeply spiritual he was, how moved he could be traveling in India or looking at images at The Louvre. Rob believed the road to Beauty required finding the Truth of a particular building, and he often asked clients what their hopes and dreams were to help him design the best possible environment for them to inhabit.”

Rob was predeceased by his brothers Rush and Sandy ’75 and is survived by his brother, Michael, many nieces and nephews, including Sandy’s son, Rush II, and his god son, Louis Burgdorf Jr., an assistant producer and on air host on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Rob’s legacy will live on,” Chris Coy affirmed in his eulogy, in his buildings, his spiritual aesthetic, and the gift of generous and often hilarious friendship that indelibly enriched so many of our lives. RIP – Jamie MacGuire ‘70 Portsmouth Abbey extends its prayers and condolences to the Barnes family.

Rob meeting Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

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IN MEMORIAM

JAMES G. MORRELL ’68 Jim Morrell died peacefully at home on September 22, 2018. He was the beloved husband of Patricia M. Colgan Morrell and the cherished father of James W. and Margret Mary.

At Portsmouth Jim was a popular, ever modest, but friendly figure.

His great contribution to School life was creating the first community service program, an initiative that spawned many related activities lasting from 1968 to the present. Jim described the program and how he began it in an article in the 2010 Summer Alumni Bulletin, excerpted here:

after-school program of sports, arts and crafts and academic tutoring for elementary school children. I was graduating in June, so I enlisted some Fifth Formers to provide continuity in the program for the following year. Nicholas Unkovic ’69, Douglas Andrews ’69 and Frederick Taintor ’69 started working at the community center during that spring.

Someone suggested that we run a summer day camp on the Portsmouth Priory campus for children from the community center. A proposal for a day camp was presented to the Prior’s Council in the winter of 1968 and approved.

The summer of 1967 was a time of change at Portsmouth Priory.

Dom Aelred Graham’s term as prior ended and Dom Matthew Stark was elected by the monastic community to replace him. That summer was known as “The Long, Hot Summer.” There were riots in major American cities that left scores dead, American casualties in the war in Southeast Asia were increasing, and so was opposition to the war.

We ran the day camp, named the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Camp, during July and August 1968. The community center sent staff people to help run the camp, and we were joined by a varied group of volunteers: my Portsmouth classmate Martin Rewcastle; students from Elmhurst Academy and Wheeler School; and a group of enthusiastic Cluny nuns from Newport. Activities included arts and crafts, sports, and trips to Newport beaches in the afternoons.

I spent part of that summer working with a diverse group of twenty other teenagers from around the country on a service project in a rural, low-income township near Kankakee, Illinois. The project was run by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. We participated in community outreach programs that included construction and farm work and worked in educational programs like Operation Headstart.

The service program continued in the next school year. An article, titled “The Volunteer Program,” appeared in a fall 1968 edition of The Beaverboard and described the volunteers for that school year: “Returning as volunteers this year will be Unkovic, who worked with the youngest children and now heads the program, Andrews, who specialized in tutoring, and Taintor, who worked in the gym and also devoted time to the youngsters.”

When I returned to Portsmouth for my Sixth Form year, I told Dom Matthew about the project and the Quaker school’s service requirement. He asked me to start a service program at Portsmouth. I was busy during the beginning of my Sixth Form year: classes; sports; Glee Club; prefect’s duties; and college applications. As those who graduated during those years will recall, college admission was important because men over the age of eighteen were required to register for the military draft and enrollment in college was necessary in order to obtain a student deferment from the draft.

In addition to leading the program that year, Nick Unkovic ran the day camp in 1969. Doug Andrews continued tutoring and wrote a senior thesis on poverty in Newport. Rick Taintor devoted free time on weekends to playing basketball with children at the community center.

By October, I had not yet organized a service program and Dom Matthew sent the always-persuasive Dom Hilary Martin and his faithful border collie, Lad, to track me down. They found me on the soccer field. When we arrived at his room in St. Bede’s, Dom Hilary handed me a cup of tea and a telephone and ordered me to start making phone calls. I eventually spoke with Warren Weston, executive director of the Newport Community Center, which was located just off Broadway in downtown Newport. Mr. Weston and I agreed that Portsmouth students would begin to volunteer at the community center after the Christmas holidays.

Beginning in January 1968 and continuing through the spring, I worked at the community center once or twice per week in an

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It is gratifying to know that a service program continues at Portsmouth all these years later.

Jim Mannion ’68 vividly remembers Jim as a “joyous, carefree friend, always smiling, wearing shorts and T-shirts on the coldest winter days. I also remember that Jim personally took the initiative to start an after-school program for underprivileged kids in Newport, which he embraced with characteristic warmth and openness to all.” Paul Florian ’68 noted, “We mourn his passing, will miss his gentle, but determined, spirit and passion for social justice.”

Jim was a loyal alumnus and frequently attended the Abbot’s Reception in New York. My friend and co-traveler. I will miss your laugh and your kindness.

– Jamie MacGuire ‘70

Portsmouth Abbey extends its prayers and condolences to the Morrell family.

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my heartbeats came back from the moon, they would create interesting rhythmic patterns in the time delay between the outgoing and incoming reflected sounds. I was recently honored by the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY, as the honored guest at a fundraising gala on October 17, 2018.

I seem to get most of my musical ideas in dreams while I’m sleeping. I don’t know how to account for this phenomenon. I’m more creative now at age 87 then I was as a student at age 27.”

52 I Fisher Vineyards in California, owned and operated for more than 40 years by Juelle and Fred Fisher ’50 and their family

50 I

Alvin Lucier ’50 at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, October 2018

The newly published book by John Tepper Marlin ’58, Oxford College Arms: Intriguing Stories That Lurk Behind the Shields of Oxford’s 44 Colleges and Halls

Fred Fisher sends his best wishes to classmates writing, “I’m at my desk as proprietor of our business. I’m in my 85th year and am very fortunate to be at my desk six days per week. This I take to be the modern world quite different than I expected when I ‘retired’ at 65. Look out guys and gals.”... Alvin Lucier writes, “I just returned from Paris where I presented two new pieces at the Palais de Tokyo.

One was called “Silk,” which consisted of sounds of spiders doing everyday tasks, the sounds of which I put through a Qin, an ancient Chinese instrument with silk strings. A second piece was called “Heartbeats to the Moon and Back” for human heartbeats sent to the moon and back with a two-and-a-half-second delay. As

Bill Denney and his wife, Sheila, continue to enjoy life in the Oshkosh/Green Bay area along with their three sons, two grandsons, their wives, and five great grandchildren. They will take time off for a month in Cape May Point, NJ, and two-and-a-half months in Sanibel, FL.

54 I

65TH REUNION, SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 The Class of 1954 will celebrate its 65th Reunion next year the weekend of September 20-22, 2018. The reunion committee, Basil Carmody, Ted Johnson and Blasdel Reardon, is busy concocting several novelties. More news will come at a later date.

55 I Legendary Ogilvy & Mather copy writer Robert Haydon Jones and Jamie MacGuire ‘70 met at the venerable Malachy McCourt’s First Friday lunch in December.

After discovering their Portsmouth connection, Bob told Jamie he had named his son for Dom Andrew Jenks.

58 I John Tepper Marlin wrote a new book titled, Oxford College Arms: Intriguing Stories That Lurk Behind the Shields of Oxford’s 44 Colleges and Halls. It is available on Amazon.

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CLASS NOTES

NEWS FROM VENEZUELA George Cleary ’58 and Juan Silva ’67 write to us from Venezuela, where amidst the hardships and difficult political climate, they are still finding positivity and peace.

Back Row: Jeanne Geddes, Alice Tepper Marlin, Hugh Ballantyne ’58, Malena Ferreyros, Carlos Cleary; Front Row: R. Denis Ambrose ’58, John Hayes ’58, Fred Torphy ’58, John Tepper Marlin ’58, and Ramon Ferreyros ’58

The Portsmouth Abbey community sends its prayers to those affected by this crisis.

Juan updates us on Venezuela’s delicate situation, informing that the government has by now asserted itself as a true Dictatorship in power backed by the Military, with basically one main objective: to stay in power.

Venezuela’s economy is in freefall. Its currency is losing value daily causing hyperinflation. The ensuing power cuts, shortages of food and medicine, and the very, very poorly paid employments are driving millions (4 million of the 30 million population) out of the country. Those remaining are learning fast how to ride the hyperinflation. As for the lower classes, these remain loyal and dependant on the government’s weekly allowance and monthly food box, at no cost to them, and, if they are lucky, patient and keep voting for the government, they may also obtain a new residence… also for free. Thus, our country has become the number one Socialist experiment in the 21 first century, where everything is for free, which works fine when the oil prices are way high over 100 $/barrel, and the government has enough money to distribute, including corruption benefits and “bread and circus” costs.

Today, we find ourselves at the crossroads again, because many foreign countries have decided not to recognize the dictator and the country seems to have run out of money. Oil prices have gone down below 50 $/barrel and the government’s inefficient (Socialist) management of the oil industry has reduced the production of oil to minimal levels, that barely cover costs).

Over the years, many of us here in Venezuela have learned to find some peace and positivity as we follow along. Middle to upper class residents are still able (with their $ savings) to enjoy visiting with their families in the States and Europe at least once a year, but still have our primary residence and our business in Venezuela. Times are difficult of course, and the crisis is real, but so are the opportunities that come along. And so, Juan concludes, “Let us now all hope for the best and return to our normal optimism mode… and find those G.D. opportunities.”

George has lived through armed raids of his home, loss of his cattle, and has seen his three grown children leave Venezuela for the U.S. However, he maintains contact with classmates. He was unable to return for Reunion, as he and his wife, Sofia, were not able to procure visas. Classmate John Tepper Marlin invited George’s son Carlos in his stead. “Carlos was absolutely enchant-

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John Hayes ’58, Jeanne Geddes, and Carlos Cleary at Reunion 2018

ed,” George writes. “He, as a schoolboy in rural Venezuela, went for three years to a school (where his aunt was the only teacher) with an earth floor in which some of his classmates had no shoes. You can’t even imagine what effect such a contrast has.”

Meanwhile, George reports that life in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. “There are small quantities of some food items available at prices few can afford. By now, a large part of the remaining population survives on remittances from overseas, from the several millions who have left,” he writes. With the exodus of his children and their families, George and Sofia are on their own “to look after the two farms, which we will not do well, and they will probably pass to the government’s hands for an insignificant sum in the medium future. We can only hope the people who get to use them, which we will probably decide, will do so in a responsible and loving fashion (which may well be)… When Columbus arrived here in Paria in 1493, he wrote to Queen Isabel that he had found Paradise. Things change.”

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59 I

50TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 John Congdon and Raul de Brigard are heading up the Reunion committee for the Class of 1959’s 50th Reunion. They are looking for help from classmates to spread the word and plan for Reunion. Please contact John or Raul to let them know you are interested.

60 I Over Veterans Day weekend 2018 Cyr Ryan and Tom Healey hosted a second mini-reunion in New Jersey to remember Carroll Cavanagh, Jerry McArdle, and Tim Lanigan who have passed since their 55th Reunion. “This was an amazing event and is a repeat of the one organized by Larry and me in 2016,” reported Jim Robinson. Chris Kinney did not make it as he attended the funeral of James Ferrer ’66 to support his classmate (Jim’s brother), Tom Ferrer. “This mini-reunion was a large and wonderful event where Meg and Tom Healey spoke about the new Science Building, the young faculty at Portsmouth Abbey, and the positive change of co-education,” says Jim...Tom Healey and Ben Kernan and had another opportunity to attend a delightful event together celebrating the life of Carroll Cavanaugh. Jamie MacGuire ’70 wrote regarding Carroll Cavanagh’s death: “Carroll’s longtime colleague at the National Gallery, art historian and Canon in the Episcopal Church, E.A. Carmean, shared a characteristic story with me. At one gala opening night, a howling rainstorm erupted, and Carroll, who was courting Dida at the time, managed to persuade a security officer to lend him his police car to drive her safely home.“... Peter Smith’s newest novel, Somebody’s Catching Hell, a Vietnam War novel, has received great praise from Kirkus Reviews, “A sharply written war novel that powerfully evokes the camaraderie and conflict of a Marine headquarters during wartime.”

At the Class of 1960 mini-reunion: (back row. from left) Bill Bippus, Cyr Ryan, Peter Smith, Tom Healey, Rick Wilson, Jay Curley. Front row, Lou Farrelly ’59, Jim Robinson, Chad Hickey and Ben Kernan. Not pictured are Al Palmieri who left early and Chris Kinney, who called in after attending the funeral of James Ferrer ’ 66 in support of classmate Tom Ferrer, James’s brother.

Carroll Cavanaugh ’60, whose life was celebrated at a wonderful event attended by classmates Tom Healey and Ben Kernan

Peter Smith ’60 (left) and Jay Curley ’60 enjoy brunch and celebrate Peter’s new book, Somebody’s Catching Hell

62 I Geza Serenyi and his wife, Peg, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by spending

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CLASS NOTES

a week at the beach with their two sons, their spouses, and their six grandchildren.

Geza also had the honor to serve as a Convocation Marshal for the Harvard Class of 2022.... John Newlin completed an MFA in Fiction Writing and published his first story titled “First Date,” in his new career path.

64 I

55TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019

The work of architect Sam White ’64 on the entrance of a home on the north shore of Long Island won a Craftsmanship Award

Very Reverend Jonathan P. DeFelice, O.S.B. ’65, judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Boston

Sam White won a Historic Restoration Award for his work on a large cast iron building in Soho and a Craftsmanship Award for a new and very finely constructed entrance to an older house on the north shore of Long Island. The program is sponsored by the New York chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, and they are called “The Stanford White Awards” after his great grandfather. Sam writes, “For that reason I wasn’t going to submit something unless it was a sure winner, which these two were. I am not a Classical architect in the vein of the majority of most of the ICAA’s constituency, but I love older buildings and have spent most of my career working on them in one way or another. I love new buildings as well, and cannot wait to see the School’s new science center up and running.”... Dana Robinson is now a grandfather six times and counting and a soon to be retired banker. He writes, “I am on the board of the National Catholic Community Foundation and would like to bring its services to the attention of the Portsmouth community. Of particular significance would be NCCF’s charitable gift annuity program which it would undertake on behalf of the Priory (sorry, the Abbey). Its website is www.nccfcommunity.org.”

65 I Very Reverend Jonathan P. DeFelice, O.S.B. was appointed judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Boston effective September 4, 2018. He comes to this position after serving in the Tribunal for the Diocese of

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Providence and as the President Emeritus of Saint Anselm College. Fr. Jonathan is also the 2019 recipient of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities highest honor, its Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, Award which recognizes outstanding contributions to Catholic higher education....

Matt Flynn’s two novels, Pryme Knumber and Bernie Weber and the Reimann, are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold. Portsmouth Priory is mentioned in both. Classmates Mark Bonner, Gene McGuckin, Geoffrey Greene, and Jim Minor as well as David Baker ‘64 make cameo appearances in one of them. Fr. Andrew would have been pleased with the occasional discussion of mathematics.

67 I After nine and a half years as a trial judge on the Superior Court of New Jersey, Civil Division, Bergen County, Chuck Powers by law must retire on his 70th birthday, November 29. After a three-month respite in Florida with his wife of 47 years, Lorraine, he will return to the bench on recall service in March 2019.

68 I Paul Florian will be the Robert AM Stern Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture from January to May 2019 teaching an advanced graduate design studio. The project is to design an inhabitable bridge crossing the Thames in London.

69 I

50TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 The 50th Reunion committee members of Peter Forker, Lincoln Kerney, Peter Moran, Terry McGuirk, and Roman Paska are busily preparing for the class’s upcoming 50th Reunion.... After celebrating his marriage to Hélène Teneur this summer, Pierre Whalon and his new bride will move to Martinique when his ministry as Bishop in charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe ends in April 2019.

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Sky Schrode ’70 and his wife, Joanie

70 I Over the summer, Jamie MacGuire faced Donald Macdonald ‘73 across the net in the “The Masters” match of the 102nd annual match between the Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club and the Rockaway Hunting Club in Rumson, NJ, Seabright’s home. It is the oldest inter-club match in the country, and both clubs have recently become “founding affiliate” clubs of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport. “This was the first time Don and I had been together on the court since 1970 at Portsmouth,” said Jamie, “It was a joy to be together in sporting friendship again after only 48 years, but who’s counting?” Jamie also taught a course on Great Catholic Novels at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in NYC last fall. At the Century Association launch of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Poetry, poet and judge Susan Kinsolving read Jamie’s “The Swamp at Rossville, Tennessee,” which was inspired by a visit Jamie paid to former faculty member Jere Crook in Memphis several years ago. Jamie continues to speak about his book Real Lace Revisited around the country, the paperback edition of which will be published in February of 2019. He was delighted to see Jane and Jim Fitzgerald and Amory Cummings when he addressed the annual banquet of the Irish Georgian Society in Chicago last October.... Nion McEvoy was honored with a dinner at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on October 21 to mark his retirement as chairman of the museum and his twelve years of service as its commissioner.... Sky Schrode writes from the south, “After 42 years in South Florida, I have made a few MAJOR changes. I am thrilled to announce my recent wedding to my beautiful bride, Joanie (Joan Simonton), and our move across Florida to Land O Lakes, just above Tampa, where we have built our brand new fabulous dream home and are just settling in. We have both ‘retired’ from our jobs, but may seek some part-time employment in our new territory. I am often in touch with my legendary Abbey sidekick Colin (Sock) Kresock who has ultimately landed

Sky wonders how many still have one of THESE, which he still dispays on his nightstand.

Donald Macdonald ‘73 and Jamie MacGuire ‘70 (middle) competed against each other in the match between the Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club and the Rockaway Hunting Club.

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Nion McEvoy ’70 was honored at at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

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in Denver, promising that another relocation is unlikely. Also, I was recently in touch with Bill Buckley, who lives not far from my new home, so we plan to visit. I welcome contact from any Portsmouth affiliates who may be somewhere nearby.”

71 I Above: Chris Ford ’77, his son Will, and his wife Alison at Will’s White Coat Ceremony. Below, Chris and his son Nick at Kingdom Trail in Burke, VT

Tom McHugh, Tom Lonergan and David Black met recently for dinner in Washington DC. They wish to remind their classmates to attend their class’s 50th Reunion in 2021.

73 I Tom Anderson writes from retirement, “After more than four years living and working in Cambridge, MA, I retired from Sage Therapeutics and returned to my home outside Philadelphia to spend more time with family and friends. My wife, Evelyn, and I are very excited about the arrival of our fourth grandchild and first granddaughter by the end of the year. In the meantime, I’m keeping busy with biotech-related projects, pursuing board roles and giving back to the industry and institutions who have helped me along the way.”

74 I 45TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 Jan Schwarzenberg will begin a six-month assignment in January as the U.S. member of the Australian Joint Counter Improvised Threat Task Force, based in Canberra. Jan’s role will be to coordinate U.S. and AUS Counter-terrorism efforts in the Pacific region. Any Abbey graduates passing through Canberra are invited to be in contact.

Tom McHugh ’71, Tom Lonergan’71, and David Black ’71 at dinner in Washington DC

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77 I Chris Ford was in NYC this August celebrating his son Will’s ‘white coat ceremony’ at the Weill Cornell School of Medicine. On this page, you will find a picture of the proud parents with Will, a non-traditional medical

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CLASS NOTES

school student with an undergraduate degree in East Asian Language and Culture from Columbia. In October, Chris had a chance to return to New England to visit his other son Nick and do some mountain biking. On this page, there is a picture of the two of them at the Kingdom Trail network in Burke, VT. Nick’s home base is Proctor Academy where his girlfriend is on the ski coaching staff.

Nick is a professional sailor and adventurer.

Chris and his wife, Ali, live in Harbor Springs, MI, where they spend a fair amount of time sailboat racing on Lake Michigan in the summer, and embracing winter sports to survive the long winters. They are enjoying life on the Fresh Coast, consulting part time and looking for new travel destinations.

Jay Aragones’ 80 (right) enjoyed a visit with former Portsmouth Abbey teacher Manuel Kreisler in Madrid.

81 I Patrick Ward’s company, 104 West Partners, has been named 2019 finalists by PRWeek for Outstanding Boutique Agency and the Best of B2B. Congratulations!

82 I Tim Crowley and his son, Will ’19, bumped into Tim’s former hockey coach and St. Aelred’s houseparent at the Abbey from 1980-82, Peter Rapelye, at the boat ramp in Duxbury this past June. Tim made sure to get a good picture of Peter and Will.

Richard Fitzgerald ’81, having fun on the west coast

85 I After finishing a Ph.D. in international trade law at Tulane University Law School, Robert Kossick and his wife, Tina, relocated to Tacoma, WA. They have settled into a new home and are busy opening up a boutique law practice focused exclusively on U.S. trade compliance and enforcement issues (including both import and export matters). Rob is also looking forward to teaching customs and trade law courses at area business and law schools. They would love to connect with other Portsmouth Abbey alumni in the Pacific Northwest.

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Former Abbey faculty Peter Rapelye and Tim Crowley ‘82’s son Will ’19

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CLASS NOTES

Buff Winterer ’87 and Joe Bardenheier ’86 at a Superhero convention (aka son Boe Bardenheier’s birthday)

87 I Buff Winterer celebrated Boe Bardenheier’s third birthday in Newport this November.

Buff is godfather to Boe, Joe Bardenheier ’86’s son. The party featured a super hero motif, and the special guests included new versions of Spiderman and Captain America.

94 I

25TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 Alejandro Perez Duque shared exiting news, “My wife, Meche, gave birth to our third child, Guillermo Estanislao, on 11/11/2018 at 12:12 a.m. on the floor of our garage. We didn’t even make it to the car on our attempt to get to the hospital. It was a blessing from God that the paramedics arrived quickly and that the birth itself was most uneventful (other than the location).

Both mom and baby are doing wonderful, and siblings Clementina (9) and Alejandro “Nano” (7) are thrilled to have their baby brother at home. It was a very happy Thanksgiving for us and a most special early Christmas present.“ You can read more in the article published in the website www. islandernews.com.

97 I Dan Hughes writes that in August, he and Simeon Stancioff visited the Palais des Papes together in Avignon, France. The magnificent palace was the residence of several popes in the 14th century when the papacy was located in Avignon rather than

Rome.... Benjamin Butterfield is living in Rhode Island with his wife, Jennette, and their children Benjamin, Jr., Charles, and Sydney. Ben is the cofounder of Nova Research Laboratories, LLC., a pharmaceutical contract research lab specializing in preclinical cardiac safety. He is currently contracted by the FDA to help minimize the need for preclinical animal testing through the use of stem cells, mathematical models, and electrophysiology even though Ben notes that he struggled in Mr. McDonough’s classes. Ben writes that he is “still close with members of the Class of ’97.

02 I David and Elizabeth Ribera Scanlan welcomed their second child, Sorchae into the world on November 12, 2017. On July 29, 2018 Father Pascal welcomed her into the Church with the Sacrament of Baptism at Portsmouth Abbey’s Church of St. Gregory the Great... Justin Bauer married Perri Hillsberg Bauer this fall at City Hall in NYC. Their first adventure together will be to move to Paris and start their life together there.

03 I Brendan Hewett was promoted to USMC Major in March 2018. He relinquished Battery Command after two-and-a-half years and a deployment with 15th MEU. He moved to North Carolina and works as a fires planner for II MEF.

Colin O’Higgins ’97 and Brendan O’Higgins ’93 at a turkey trot in Florida

Dan Hughes ’97 and Simeon Stancioff ’97 at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

CLASS NOTES

04 I

15TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 Gretchen McDonough married Coby Addison this past summer. Since she ran a Boston Marathon qualifying time of 3:29 at the Pittsburgh Marathon, you will be able to track her run from Hopkinton to Boston on April 15, 2019... Daphne Nebergall Robbins’s daughter, Florence, was baptized by Fr. Paschal at Portsmouth Abbey’s Church of St. Gregory the Great.

06 I Jamal Burk, currently a special assistant attorney general for the State of RI, has been named a new member of the San Miguel School Board of Directors in Providence, RI. San Miguel is an independent middle school for urban youth from the Greater Providence area. It serves boys from all cultures and faiths in grades five through eight. One hundred percent of graduating eighth-graders continue on to high school, attending some of the top secondary schools in Rhode Island, including the Abbey. Read Jamal’s profile on page 49.

Ravens from the class of 2015 gathered on St. Simons Island, GA, in May to celebrate Gerrard Hanly’s 21st birthday: (l-r) Wade Bredin, Ryan Conroy, George Johnson, Anders Guarrenabarrena, Winslow Wawro, Brendan Carlin and Gerrard Hanly

Dom Paschal Scotti baptised the daughter of Ari and Daphne Nebergall Robbins ’04 at Portsmouth Abbey’s Church of St. Gregory the Great.

07 I Patrick Meehan was married on November 10, 2018 to Mary Bilodeau at St Luke’s Church in Barrington, RI. Classmate Brendan Kinnane was there to help celebrate....

Max Klietmann and his wife, Lavinia, welcomed their daughter, India Garthwaite Klietmann, into their family on November 1, 2018 at a healthy 7lbs. 9oz. Her twoand-a-half year-old big brother, Paul, is very proud and excited, eager to show off his new sibling to just about anyone he meets!

Max is a senior consultant on pharmaceutical market access strategy with EVERSANA. The Klietmanns live in Charleston, SC, where they are always happy to welcome a Raven for cocktails!

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Matt Stencel ’93, proud dad of daughters Grace ’22 and Amelia ’22 at their volleyball game over Portsmouth Abbey’s Parents’ Weekend

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CLASS NOTES

10 I Pierce MacGuire reports that he and his wife have recently moved to Austin, TX. They are expecting their first child in January....Tessa Condon Kennedy graduated with her masters in Speech Language Pathology in August 2017 and spent a year working in Early Intervention. Tessa has accepted a job at Mass General Hospital in Boston, where she works as a member of the pediatric feeding disorders team.

11 I

Alex Gallo ’09 on his hike through the Grand Canyon

08 I Jimmy Buckley donated a kidney to an unknown recipient at Rhode Island Hospital.

After a successful transplant, Jimmy was able to meet his grateful kidney recipient...

Frank Holbrook has been named the head baseball coach at Rhode Island College. He comes to RIC from Wheaton College where he was the assistant baseball coach responsible of the development of the pitching staff and acted as the recruiting coordinator...

After going into heart failure in February 2017, Darris Owens was told he needed a new heart. He finally received his heart at Mass General on October 8, 2018. Darris is recovering and getting stronger every day.

09 I

10TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 Alex Gallo started working as a commercial logistics analyst for Smith and Nephew Orthopedics in February. After training for a few months in the Denver office (and after a spring break hike through the Grand Canyon), he accepted a full-time analyst position in Memphis, where he is enjoying the challenge in his new role.

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Tim McGuirk moved to New York City in August to begin work at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum as a manager on the communications team. Tim writes, “The experience has reminded me in so many wonderful ways of the first few months on Cory’s Lane. From developing a new daily routine to exploring all that this new place offers, I look forward to settling in and connecting with other Ravens in this extraordinary place.“... Katie Sgarro was highlighted by the Clinton Foundation Honor Roll Series for her work helping LGBTQ people being persecuted in their home countries find safe resources in the US with AslyumConnect, a non-profit she and a friend co-founded in 2014 while students at the University of Pennsylvania... Taylor Smariga is currently living in Kinsale, Ireland - Newport’s sister city. She moved back to the USA from Melbourne, Australia, where she and her boyfriend spent the last year living and working. After several years working in digital marketing, Taylor has decided to take a different route and has started studying animation under mentors from DreamWorks, Pixar, and other major animation studios. Her goal is to be working in Ireland’s booming animation scene in a couple of years... Philip Youngberg moved to Bahrain last summer to join the U.S. Surface Fleet as a Navigation and Operations Officer. Among their missions is to support U.S. allies in the Gulf and ensure freedom of navigation throughout the Persian Gulf.

P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

CLASS NOTES A group from the Class of 2016 celebrating Jimmy Murphy’s birthday: (back row) Claire Doire, Brandt Matthews, Jimmy Murphy, Cassie Schuchert, Lucy Ferry, Anjli Patel, and Rory O’Connor; (front row) Claire Davidson, Susan Wu, and Caellum Kerr

12 I Ceara Bowman is running this year’s Boston Marathon for the American Liver Foundation. Ceara writes, “I’m running the 2019 Boston Marathon for the American Liver Foundation in honor of my grandpa, Richard Gralton, who passed away from liver cancer.

My goal is to reach $8,500 which will go to research. Please consider donating to my fundraiser; any and all amounts go such a long way!! My link is bit.ly/BowmanRunsBoston. Checks can also be made to the ALF with my name in the memo line and sent to Sheri Singer, American Liver Foundation, 188 Needham St. suite 240, Newton, MA 02464.

Thank you so much!!! Go Ravens!“

14 I

5TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2019 Hayden Molinari graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in May 2018 with a B.S. in computer science. In May 2018, he began his career as a software engineer for Raytheon Company in Portsmouth, RI. He lives in Newport, RI.... Peter Vergara graduated from Fordham University in May majoring in art history and philosophy. He

took the summer to travel through Europe and walk the Camino de Santiago from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Finisterre. Now back in New York Peter is working at Sotheby’s as the administrator for the Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sales.

16 I Jimmy Murphy celebrated his 21st birthday party aboard the Cloud IV in NYC. He enjoyed the company of many classmates from the Abbey.

18 I Abbey Luth is already making headlines on the William Smith College Hockey team. As the first in the school’s history to record a hat trick, she is leading the team to its best start and longest winning streak. Abbey was also named United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) Player of the Week in November 2018.

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PAGE 95

PORTSMOUTH ABBEY SUMMER PROGRAM Have a Summer That Matters!

2019 Dates:

Sunday, June 30 – Thursday, July 25 Rising students in grades 7, 8, and 9 participate in a transformational and intentionally-designed program, striking a thoughtful balance between enrichment and recreation while rooted in our Benedictine foundation.

For more information, please check out our website: www.portsmouthabbey.org/summerprogram For inquiries, please contact Director of the Summer Program,

Mrs. Cat Caplin, at 401-643-1390.

Have a summer that matters!

“It was great to meet new people and I loved all my classes! I recommend this program to anyone who likes to have loads of fun and learn at the same time.”

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P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL

MISSION STATEMENT The aim of Portsmouth Abbey School is to help young men and women grow in knowledge and grace.

Grounded in the Catholic faith and 1,500-year-old Benedictine intellectual tradition, the School fosters: Reverence for God and the human person Respect for learning and order Responsibility for the shared experience of community life

BOARD OF REGENTS Father Michael Brunner, O.S.B. Prior Administrator St. Louis, MO Mr. W. Christopher Behnke ’81 P’12 ’15 ’19 Chairman Chicago, IL Mr. Christopher Abbate ’88 P’20 New York, NY Ms. Abby Benson ’92 Boulder, CO Dom Joseph Byron, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI Mr. Creighton O. Condon ’74 P’07 ’10 Jamestown, RI Sr. Suzanne Cooke, R.S.C.J. Washington, D.C. Dom Francis Crowley, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI Mrs. Kathleen Cunningham P’08 ‘09 ‘11 ‘14 Dedham, MA Mr. Gang (Jason) Ding P’18 Qingdao, China

Dr. Timothy P. Flanigan ’75 P’06 ’09 ’11 ’19 ‘21 Tiverton, RI

Mr. Emmett O’Connell P’16 ’17 Stowe, VT

Mr. Peter S. Forker ’69 Chicago, IL

Mr. Shane O’Neil ‘65 Bedford, MA

Mr. Patrick Gallagher ’81 P’15 Providence, RI

Mr. Peter J. Romatowski ’68 McLean, VA

Mrs. Margaret S. Healey P’91 GP’19 ‘21 New Vernon, NJ

Rev. Dom Paschal Scotti, O.S.B. Portsmouth, RI

Mr. Denis Hector ’70 Miami, FL

Mr. Rowan G. P. Taylor P’13 ’17 ’18 Charleston, SC

Dr. Gregory Hornig ’68 P’01 West Palm Beach, FL

Mr. William Winterer ’87 Boston, MA

Father Paschal with students outside of St. Benet’s circa 1993.

Mrs. Cara Gontarz Hume ’99 Hingham, MA Mr. Peter M. Kennedy III ’64 P’07 ’08 ’15 Big Horn, WY Mr. William M. Keogh ’78 P’13 Jamestown, RI Dr. Mary Beth Klee P’04 Hanover, NH Father Dominic Lenk, O.S.B. St. Louis, MO

Mr. Christopher and Dr. Debra Falvey P’18 ’20 Ms. Devin McShane P’09 ’11 Co-chairs, Parents’ Association Providence, RI Plaistow, NH Mr. Peter Ferry ’75 P’16 ’17 Philadelphia, PA Mrs. Frances Fisher P’15 San Francisco, CA

EMERITUS Mr. Peter M. Flanigan R ’41 P’75 ’83 GP’06 ’09 ’09 ’11 ’11 ’19 ’19 ’21 Purchase, NY Mr. Thomas Healey ’60 P’91 GP’19 ‘21 New Vernon, NJ Mr. William Howenstein R ’52 P’87 GP’10 ’17 ’21 ’22 Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Mr. Barnet Phillips, IV ’66 Greenwich, CT R

deceased

Abbott Gregory Mohrman, O.S.B. St. Louis, MO

Father Paschal with current Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Form students outside of St. Benet’s in 2018.

Mr. Philip V. Moyles, Jr. ’82 Annual Fund Chair Rye, NY

knowledge and grace remains the same. Your gifts to the Annual Fund make it possible to fulfill our Mission and ensure

While much has changed since the early 90s, Portsmouth Abbey’s Mission of helping young men and women grow in that today’s students are equipped with the resources, skills, and knowledge to become the future leaders in the world.

Join us in support of our Mission by making your Annual Fund gift today at www.portsmouthabbey.org/makeagift.

Front cover: Ignatius MacLellan ’77, managing director in the Homeownership Division at New Hampshire’s Housing Finance Authority and leader of a volunteer group that travels to El Salvador each year to work with Epilogos Charities.

Please contact Director of the Annual Fund Alexandra Karppinen at akarppinen@portsmouthabbey.org or 401-643-1204 with any questions about the Annual Fund.

285 Cory’s Lane Portsmouth, Rhode Island 02871 www.portsmouthabbey.org Address Service Requested

P ORT S M O U T H

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID

Providence, RI Permit No. 30

A BB E Y S C HO OL PORTSMOUTH ABBE Y SCHOOL

1949g1954g1959g1964g1969g1974g1979g1984g1989g1994g1999g2004g2009g2014

Calling all Classes ending in 4 or 9 and members of the Diman Club This is your REUNION year!

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SAVE THE DATE! SEPT. 20 - 22, 2019

September 20 – 22, 2019 Please mark your calendar for a weekend of fun and nostalgia with your family, friends and classmates.

Visit www.portsmouthabbey.org/reunion for more information on the schedule of events, accommodations, golf outings, class dinners and more.

Questions? Contact Laura Turner at 401-643-1184 or lturner@portsmouthabbey.org.

WINTER ALUMNI BULLETIN 2019