Basilian Fathers
 For this white-haired, Catholic priest they are sounds that calm: the buzzing whir of a drill, the slicing screech of a saw, the staccato banging of a hammer. While others find tranquility in prayer or reading or music, Father Patrick Braden can also find it in the wood shop of Donoghue Hall (better known as the Basilian House), the residential complex for priests on the University of St. Thomas campus. It is not surprising, then, that you often find Father Braden, a former UST president, clanging around in here, measuring, cutting, sanding, drilling, pounding, the conductor of a kind of machine symphony in which he plays all the instruments. What he creates, of course, does not end with noise. Bookcases, like those he made for Father Janusz Ihnatowicz and Father Joseph Pilsner, were fashioned out of sturdy pine.
It is two o’clock in the afternoon, and Father Braden, a U.S. Navy veteran with a doctorate in engineering from the University of Texas, works the loudly vibrating drill press. “I find this very peaceful,” he yells above the din, explaining later that focusing on a job at hand allows him to silence everyday agitations. Though the sounds of this “silence” underscore the need for earplugs, they do nothing to spoil the view through a workshop window. Roses—red, white, pink and yellow—are in bloom. Sunlight sparkles on the white and blue cabanas housing the majority of UST’s 14 Basilian priests. Walk outside and you find Father Pat Warden, the house bursar, departing in a Ford Escort to go grocery shopping for the community. Turn around, and you see Father Jack Gallagher, a former Superior General of the Basilians and a man who enjoys the sixteen-mile walk to and from Saint. Mary’s Seminary, tending the garden.
 The more you learn about Basilians, the order of Catholic priests that founded UST in 1947, the more you want to know. You want to know, for example, what pushes Father Daniel Callam, an Oxford graduate, professor of theology and University chaplain, to head for the piano every day at 8 a.m. to play Shubert and Chopin. But it is no easy task to learn about these men who now only number 300 in the world. They are reluctant to talk about themselves or the success of their work because they find it unseemly. As unbelievable as that sounds early in the third millennium, when self-promotion seems to have no bounds, it is true. I’ve seen a priest turn three shades of red after my asking him to talk about an award he had won. They feel uncomfortable, as if they’re “bragging.” And so we know little about a courageous force in education for nearly 200 years.
Yes, the Lord moves in mysterious ways.
The Basilian order, which has never numbered more than 700, is now involved in institutions of higher learning in Canada and the United States. There are also high schools in Canada, the United States, France and Colombia. In addition to St. Thomas High School and UST in Houston, there are eight Basilian parishes in the Houston area. Basilians also serve in Mexico City, in Tehuacan (Mexico), and in Cali (Colombia). In Annonay, France, the Basilian Fathers began as a religious order of priests about 185 years ago. Like many other religious orders, they were founded to reintroduce religion into education in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which had totally secularized it. Because of anticlerical laws in France in the early twentieth century and the subsequent removal of religious orders from education, the center of gravity of the Basilians shifted to North America, leaving now in France only the original college at Annonay. The priests of that college formed their religious association on November 21, 1822. They decided to call themselves Les Messieurs de Saint Basile since their school at was in the parish of St. Basil. So much for the common assumption that the Basilian Fathers were founded by Saint Basil the Great, a bishop in fourth-century Anatolia (modern Turkey), but his profound spirituality, his impressive learning and his commitment to social justice make him an eminently suitable patron for a group of Catholic educators.
 It is 5 p.m. at the Basilian House. A procession of Basilian priests vested for Mass walks into the chapel on the grounds of the complex. On this Thursday Father Joseph Pilsner is scheduled to celebrate the weekly Mass. With a doctorate from Oxford, Father Pilsner has headed UST’s nationally recognized Honors Program and continues at UST as professor of theology. “There are generally two things that cause men to become priests,” he says: “a deep interior conviction calling you to the work and an example of the priest that inspires you.” The priest who did much to inspire him in the 80’s as he was working on a master’s degree at UST was none other than Father J. Michael Miller, then a theology professor who went on to the presidency of UST and is now Archbishop Miller, secretary for the Congregation of Religious Education at the Vatican. “I admired Father Miller’s intelligent approach to Christian life and virtues.” A relatively recent appointment to UST is Father Anthony Giampietro, a native of Washington who ran track and played basketball in high school and college and then had a career in banking before answering the call to the priesthood. He represents the ongoing commitment of the Basilians community to the important work of Catholic higher education. Another popular priest on campus is Father Dennis Andrews, an education professor who listens to the Beatles as much as Bach. His entry into the priesthood was anything but smooth: “I told my parents I was joining the Basilian community, and my mother fainted,” he recalls, laughing. When she came to, she begged him to become a diocesan parish priest instead, in his native Detroit. She was afraid she would hardly ever see him if he went off to become a teacher “somewhere” for the Basilians. As it turned out, Father Andrews’ parents later lived in Florida, so his Texas residence made visits much easier then.
At UST each Basilian has a small private room, a sort of monastic cell measuring about 9 x 13 feet. “In terms of lifestyle, we all want to keep things as simple as possible,” Father Andrews says. “Our vow of poverty calls for that.” Though each Basilian professor or administrator makes a competitive wage, the money goes into a common fund to support the Basilian community, many of whom are retired. They also contribute generously to UST’s annual fund drive; in addition they support special projects on campus; they gave $250,000 toward the construction of the Chapel of Saint Basil.
 Basilian House cooks Ruby Justice and Juanita Rogers have been on the scene so long that they know a lot more about the priests than the one who likes his beef rare or well-done. Father Ihnatowicz, they point out, knew personally the priest who turned out to be first Polish pope. “I wrote for his diocesan paper when he was a bishop,” Father Ihnatowicz says. “We used to talk about articles. He was quite an editor.” Who would have thought it? The famous John Paul II once was a member of the media.
Father Ted Baenziger—who considers himself “pi-lingual” because “at any one given time I know about 3.14 languages”—holds a doctorate in foreign languages from the renowned Sorbonne in France,. He is witty in explaining why he prefers his prize-winning orchids to grass. With his rapid fire, antic delivery, he reminds you of Robin Williams: “Even though I am on the garden committee, I will not cut grass. Grass is useless. I won’t have anything to do with grass. It’s neutral. It does nothing. It’s some American fetish. People act as if having a lawn means you’re a good person . . . that you’re neat because your grass is neat. It doesn’t mean that at all. It means for some reason you have a fetish about grass. Cutting grass reminds me of those old butch haircuts in the ‘50s that I hated. It’s some weird status symbol. From an ecological point of view, it’s doing nothing. People need to understand that.” And how does Father Jack Gallagher, the other gardener, respond to this tirade? “I like grass,” he says.
 It is safe to say you will have to search a long, long time before finding another ex-college president (he also served a stint as president of Saint John Fisher College in New York) who lives in the unassuming fashion of Father Braden. It is also safe to say that the characteristics you see in this man who caught malaria in Niger as a missionary are typical of the Basilians at UST. While Father Braden, who has long taught physics at the University, was also UST’s first director of the physical plant (he wired the General Office), other priests such as Father George Hosko have made their contributions to the smooth running of the University. He now occupies a busy desk as the librarian in charge of interlibrary loans.
It took courage for the Basilians to open UST with 57 students in 1947; with little money on hand they gave Houstonians an opportunity for a higher education with a definitive Catholic character. Father Brezik, for instance, now retired, was instrumental in establishing the justly famous Center for Thomistic Studies at UST. The range of the priests’ involvement throughout the years is striking, from the philosophy taught by Father James Keon and the mathematics by Father Harold O’Leary to the wide-ranging archeological interests of Father Edward Bader. Similarly, the current religious superior of the community, Father Robert Crooker, a Houstonian whose studies and service to the Church have taken him to Europe, Canada, and, in Texas, to the Diocese of Las Cruces, has recently resumed teaching as an adjunct in the department of theology. “Though the Basilians make up only a small minority of the faculty now that the University has grown, they are still the very essence of UST,” says Dr. Louie Galloway II, a professor of physics. “The core curriculum of arts and sciences they insisted on for a liberal arts university, with a strong dose of theology and philosophy, emphasizes not only how to make a living but how to make a life. Our students learn how to reason. It is the kind of core that other schools are now trying to imitate.”
“I think the more people find out about us,” Father Braden says, “the more they like us.”
Amen. |
