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 BENEDICTINE

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BENEDICTINE

peared at an early date. In 1493 a monk from Montserrat accompanied Columbus on his voyage of discovery and became vicar-Apostolic of the West Indies, but his stay was short, and he returned to Spain. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one or two Enghsh monks, and at least one of the Maurist congregation, worked on the .American mission: and at the time of the French Revolution -negotiations had been commencetl bj^ Bishop Carroll, first Bishop of Baltimore, for a settlement of English Benedictines in liis diocese, which, however, came to notliing. The Benedictine Order was first estab- lished permanently in .\merica by Dom Boniface Wimmer, of the Abbey of Metten. in Bavaria. A number of Bavarians had emigrated to America, and it was suggested that their sriritual wants in the new country should be attended to by Bavarian priests. Dom Wimmer and a few companions ac- cordingly set out in 1846. and on their arrival in America they acquired the church, a house, and

Newark, New Jersey, founded 1857, with a school of 100 boj's; Maryhelp Abbey, Belmont, North Caro- Una, foimded 1885, the abbot of which is also %icar- .\postolic of North Carolina; attached to the abbey are two colleges and a school, with over 200 students; St. Procopius's Abbey, Chicago, founded 1887, with a school of 50 boys and an orphanage attached; St. Leo's Abbe}^ Pasco County, Florida, founded 1889; this abbey has a dependent prion.- in Cuba; St. Bernard's Abbey, Cullman County. Alabama, founded 1891, with a school of over 100 boys; St. Peter's Priory, established in Illinois in 1892 and transferred to Muenster, Saskatchewan, N. W. T., in 1903; St. Martin's Prior}', Lacey, the State of Washington, founded 1895.

(IS) The Swiss American Congregation. — In 1854 two monks from Einsiedeln in Switzerland came to .\merica and founded the monastery of St. Meinrad, in Indiana, serving the mission and conducting a small school for boys. It became a priory in 1865,

Maryhelp .4.bbet, Belmont, N. C.

-some land belonging to the small mission of St. Vin- cent, Beatty. Pennsylvania, which had been founded some time pre\iously by a Franciscan niissionarj'. Here they set to work, establishing conventual life, as far as was possible vmder the circumstances, and appl}-ing themselves assiduously to the work of the mission. Reinforced by more monks from Bavaria and their poverty relieved by some munificent dona- tions, they accepted additional outhnng missions and established a large college. In 1855 St. Vincent's, which had already founded two dependent priories, was made an abbey and the mother-house of a new congregation, Dom Wimmer being appointed first abbot and president. Besides St. Vincent's Arch- Abbey, the following foimdations have been made: St. Jolin's Abbey, CoUegeville, Minnesota, founded

1856, mainly through the generosity of King Lud- Tsng I of Bavaria; connected with the abbey is a large ■college for boys, with an attendance of over 300; St. Benedict's Abbey, .Atchison, Kansas, founded

1857, said to possess the finest Benedictine church in .\merica, built in the style of the Rhenish churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries; there is in con- nexion a school with 150 boj's; St. Mary's Abbey,

and in 1870 was made an abbey and the centre of the congregation which was canonically erected at the same time. The first abbot, Dom Martin Marty, became, in 1879, first Vicar .4postolic of Dakota, where he had some years pre\iously inaugurated mission work amongst the Indians. The following new foundations were made: Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri (1873), the abbot of this abbey being president of the congregation; New Subiaco Abbey, Spielerville, .Arkansas (1878); St. Benedict's Abbey, Movmt Angel, Oregon (1882); St. Joseph's Abbev, Covinaton, Louisiana (1889); St. Mary's Ab- bey, Richardton, North Dakota (1899); St! Gall's Prior}', Devil's Lake (1893), the last two communi- ties subject to the same abbot. To all these monas- teries are attached numerous missions, in which the monks exercise the cure of souls. They also have several seminaries and colleges.

(19) The Congregation of St. Ottilien. — This congre- gation, specially established for the work of foreign missions, was commenced in 1884 in the .\bbey of St. Ottilien. in Bavaria, under the title of the "Congre- gation of the Sacred Heart". It was not then Bene- dictine, but in 1897 was afiBliated to the Cassinese