1822: Before & After
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Introduction
Part I: 1800-1922 - A Century or More of Trials
Part II: The Significance of 1922
Part III: How Far Have We Come?
Conclusion
To treat the entirety of our Basilian history, as the above title suggests, in the space of a few pages would appear presumptuous, were it not for the clear mandate which the present writer received from the superior general: "it would give some perspective to our discussions up to and at the 1993 Chapter if the whole congregation were more aware of our history leading up to 1922 and immediately after". True, Jack Gallagher had in mind a somewhat limited period of time before and after 1922, with, as he said, special attention drawn to "the positive efforts that succeeded in bringing relatively greater order out of a certain amount of chaos".
However, to have an appreciation of this turning point in our history, 1922, one has to go back over a century or more to review at least the highlights; and then, to make any assessment of its impact one really has to look at how our congregation has evolved from the days of Frank Forster's generalate to the present. The paper therefore falls into three parts, the first part being devoted to the trials and triumphs of our first hundred and some years, 1800-1922; the second part concentrating on why 1922 is a significant date in Basilian History; and the third making an attempt to assess how far we have come in the meantime.
To Church historians the sources for this paper will seem to be limited, perhaps sufficiently so to relegate it to the category of "an archives-centred essay". So be it. The scope of the paper is specifically and unashamedly Basilian: what a few Basilians have written about our history, what our administrators have recorded in meetings, chapters, letters, journals, as well as the traditions and customs that have come down from one generation of Basilians to the next. It may not be a brilliant or breath-taking history, compared to that of other orders and institutes, but it is ours and we make no apology for it. How we interpret our history as a help to future development is our affair and our responsibility
1800-1922: a century or more of trials
Anyone who has read Charles Roume's book on the first fifty years of Basilian history cannot help but wonder how our congregation ever survived. At various times the end seemed imminent. But Divine Providence, working through ordinary people, always found a solution to the most distressing situations. Somehow the little community managed to struggle on.
Basilians from the very outset were familiar with tension, trial, even chaos. After all, the two people responsible for the original work of the community, Archbishop D'Aviau of Vienne and Joseph Lapierre, were both outlaws in the eyes of the French Revolutionary State. They were refractory priests, non-patriots, one of whom refused to swear the oath of allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, the other who swore it and at once recanted. It was ambitious, courageous, and downright dangerous to promote Christian education in the teeth of the Reign of Terror, but that is exactly what the archbishop did when he first contacted Lapierre in 1797 and bade him organize a school at Saint- Symphorien-de-Mahun, as well as take care of the parish there. The anti-clerical atmosphere which prevailed in much of France among the civil and political leaders can be sensed in the report of the police commissioner for the Ardèche when he wrote in 1799: "The priests are the only enemies of the government and once extirpated from society there will no longer be terrorism, nor royalism nor crimes in France".
Nevertheless, a little band of teachers and junior masters formed around Lapierre and his associate, Joseph Marie Actorie, to give a direction to the future apostolate, that of teaching and preaching. Such names as Jean Antoine Vallon, Auguste Payan, Pierre Tourvieille, began to appear in the school register, together with Vincent Duret, André Fayolle, Henri Martinesche, Jean François Pagès, Julien Tracol. Even the benign mayor of Saint Symphorien, Jean Baptiste Polly, was to join them and study for the priesthood. This group of ten secular priests constitute our original founding fathers.
Living with crises
The early years, 1800-1822, brought one crisis after another for the small group of priest teachers and their associates. Their school in Annonay, the Institution Actorie, almost closed in 1805 because its director could not make his history classes `politically correct.' What was recorded of Joseph Marie Actorie in 1797 in his home town, Romans, seemed still to be true, namely, that his political views were such as "to make fanatics of his pupils and to inspire in them horror for the Republic and unbounded attachment to the monarchy". There were other teachers on the staff of the Annonay school of a like mind. The prefect and sub-prefect for the Ardèche were ready to remove the director and dismiss the staff, but the parents whose children attended the school let it be known that they wanted the school to continue with its same teachers. They argued that a few staff changes could satisfy all concerned. Providentially the young Pierre Tourvieille had just returned to Annonay after completing his graduate studies in mathematics at the university of Grenoble. His appointment as professor of mathematics to replace a controversial teacher, Cottey, gave Lapierre the encouragement he needed to accept the office of director. With Lapierre and Tourvieille in key positions, the school, now called Institution Lapierre, was able to carry on. Joseph Actorie accepted the title of prefect of studies, and taught various subjects in the lower grades, but history was not one of them.
How big was the school in question? Accurate lists are hard to come by, and reports vary, probably because some students dropped out and others registered in the course of any given year. The following figures are reasonably close: In 1800-1801 when the school was at Saint-Symphoriende-Mahun there were 12 boarders and 40-50 day students, aged 12-30. In 1801-1802 there were 32 boarders and 60 day students. In 1802-1803, when the school moved to Annonay, there were 57 boarders and 75 day students.
The priest teachers who were to become "the Basilians" opened a second school in Annonay in 1805, Sainte Barbe. It was a sort of minor seminary for the sons of poor families. A third school opened in Annonay in 1813, Sainte Claire, for students going into commerce and industry. It was largely Tourvieille's creation, and something of an innovation in the school system of the time. By 1826 and for the next twenty years the main school, now called "le collège des Cordeliers" had an average of 155 pupils per year, Sainte Barbe regularly counted between 80 and 100 and Sainte Claire enrolled an average of 60. This latter school became a special section of the main college in 1827. By 1848 the total enrollment reached 276, of whom 146 were boarders. With the voting of the Falloux Law in 1850, allowing a greater number of private secondary schools, the figures for the Basilian schools dropped to about 173.
The financial status of these schools was precarious, to say the least. The university tax of 1809 levied on all students who attended a private school put the Lapierre Institution under a severe strain. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1813 a royal ordinance was promulgated which made it possible for a diocese to have one "ecclesiastical school" with bursaries available. The Lapierre Institution qualified, and the ordinary, Bishop de Mons of Mende approved, but a stipulation made it unacceptable to Lapierre, tempting though the offer was: the bursaries were available to boarders only. Lapierre, Tourvieille and Joseph Actorie all agreed that the school in Annonay should remain open to all students, even those who had no particular desire to study for the priesthood. They would encourage vocations but they would not turn the school into a minor seminary for boarders only. This important decision would not have been possible if the priest teachers had not turned all the revenue into the maintenance of the school and contributed generously from their own resources.
The gesture did not go unnoticed. The rector of the academy of Nîmes, Pierre Tédenat, in his 1817 report on Institutions, reduced the Annonay school to the status of "une pension" a boarding school, with no accreditation. It was a severe blow to Lapierre and his little band of helpers. Such "pensions" were easy to establish, as they required no certificate of accreditation. Their graduates could go to a major diocesan seminary but not to a state university. Several "pensions" opened up in the Ardèche at this time draining students from the Annonay school. The years 1817 to 1819 were critical, but the worst of the crisis passed when the Lapierre Institution received accreditation once again, thanks to the excellent quality of the teaching and the good results obtained. Years later it was confirmed in a letter from the new rector of the academy of Nîmes to Tourvieille: "For a long time now your Institution has ranked among the exceptional as to the extent of teaching offered" (humanities, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry); obviously it was "equipped to prepare young men for the baccalaureate examinations." It had taken devotion to duty and dogged determination to regain the confidence of the academy.
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Towards a religious association
The achievement above did not go unnoticed in the episcopal see at Viviers, still administered from Mende. Bishop Brulley de la Brunière, who became administrator for Viviers in July 1822, was aware of the good being done in Annonay by a group of priests in their three schools; they were known then simply as "ces messieurs d'Annonay." In September of 1822 these same "gentlemen" presented the bishop with a petition to be recognized as an association of priests in the diocese devoted to the apostolic work of teaching and preaching. They had a simple religious rule, the one drawn up for the college masters by the local parish priest, Henry Léorat-Picansel. In sum it stated that theirs was to be a truly ecclesiastical life, entirely edifying, a way of life "in which work follows prayer and prayer follows work" .
At first only six of our ten founders signed the petition to form an association. Vallon, Fayolle, Pagès and Martinesche were dissatisfied with the vagueness of the wording and aspired to a more intense religious life. For some time these four had been adding extra devotions to their regular exercises, for example, a daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament, weekly culp, various novenas, a monthly retreat, an annual retreat of fifteen days, and spiritual direction under the guidance of Augustin Payan. However, when the bishop replied that he was generally favourable to the original request provided the new association take charge of a minor seminary at Maison-Seule, they agreed to join their six confreres. The association came into being officially on the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady, 21 November 1822, when the fathers held their first general chapter in Annonay and elected Joseph Lapierre as their superior general. After some discussion they chose Saint Basil as their patron, which identified them henceforth as the Association of Priests of St. Basil.
Towards a clearer mandate
The words "chapter," "superior general" "rule" would lead one to believe these Basilians were a religious congregation in the canonical sense after 1822. Such was not the case. Nor was it the intention of the fathers to found a congregation, although four of the ten leaned in that direction. They were an association or society of secular priests willing to live in community and pool their resources to help the bishop in his concern for the Christian education of youth. They were not at all sure how long their services would be needed for this type of work, hence their reluctance to draw up a set of constitutions for themselves. In reflecting on their good will at the time of their founding Tourvieille admitted candidly that they disagreed on how to achieve their end: "We were several men with different ideas and temperaments; we saw the need of uniting together in a society . That was our project . On what bases was it founded and what were the means to bring it about? Our confusion was very great. All of us had pure and upright intentions, all willed the end. What must be done to attain it? Each had his own way of looking at things..."
Their religious vows were those of the ecclesiastical state incumbent on all priests, but they did promise to stay together for at least three years. Their life of utter poverty probably exceeded the poverty of most other priests in the diocese. It was a loose association, too loose to attract or retain new recruits, and the strong man of the group, Tourvieille, respected by all but loved by none, was loath to tighten it up in any canonical sense. Fifteen years after their founding, in 1837, their number had grown by seven members only, and precious little more by 1852 when they sent out their first missionaries to the New World. Small though they were, and definitely an association only, they thought of themselves as a religious community and actually used the ambiguous term "congregation" in various documents from 1822 on.
To the vicar general for the southern Ardèche, Vernet, they were no religious congregation in any sense of the term; furthermore, their existence was unnecessary; in a word, they should be suppressed. When Viviers was finally recognized once again as a diocese in its own right, and Bishop André Molin took over as ordinary in April 1823, Vernet lost no time in convincing him that the community of St. Basil was "an Association without consistency," formed only to exploit a thriving enterprise, the schools in Annonay; its existence was a scandal that had to be removed. After two years in office, Bishop Molin agreed to suppress the Association of Priests of St. Basil, but suddenly the Lord intervened. Tourvieille had his own expression for it: "Providence, after showing us the danger at close range and indicating that It alone controlled events, the eve of the day when the Society was to be dissolved in the diocese, brought about the demise of the Bishop who was going to declare the dissolution". The bishop died of natural causes.
Vernet did not press Molin's successor, Bishop Bonnel, to quite the same degree; but it was only in 1841, with the appointment of Joseph Hippolyte Guibert, O.M.I., to the see of Viviers that the Basilians felt their work was recognized and appreciated. "I assure you," said Bishop Guibert to Tourvieille, "that I hold dear to my heart the Christian education of youth and I have the highest regard for the work to which you are consecrated and in which you have succeeded so well in the diocese".
Lingering uncertainty
There is no doubt that Tourvieille, superior general from 1838 to his death in 1859, was an able administrator; but he lacked the warmth and flexibility necessary to nurture a family spirit within the little association. He attributed the lack of Basilian vocations to the difficulty of the teaching apostolate: "Teaching offers no great attraction and little compensation for the sacrifices and devotion it demands," he wrote in 1842. At the same time he resisted pleas on the part of some of the confreres for greater structure in the association along the lines of canonically erected religious congregations. An exasperated Julien Actorie, cousin of Joseph Marie Actorie, reveals the state of uncertainty from which the early Basilians suffered as to their identity: "What do we want to be? Religious or secular priests? We are in a vague and uncertain state. That is the reason for all our hesitations and all our discussions. Let us begin by agreeing on the nature and form of our association". Actorie wanted a regular novitiate, precise constitutions and a rule expanded beyond the bare essentials. The pleas fell on deaf ears. To the end Tourvieille thought it sufficient to put a soutane on a prospective recruit, have him teach and live with the teachers, and only after a few years, if he seemed to fit in, admit him to the study of theology which would be on an informal basis with an older priest confrere.
By June of 1851 the Association of Priests of St. Basil numbered 21 members, 7 of whom were over fifty years of age. Tourvieille had already allowed Patrick Moloney to accompany Bishop de Charbonnel to the New World. Now he was being asked to release four more confreres to set up a school in Toronto. Could the little community in France stand such an outlay of manpower? Given the size of the association, the expansion of the Basilian work in the diocese of Viviers had been considerable since 1822. Besides the main college and Sainte Barbe in Annonay, the Basilians had taken on the direction of minor seminaries in Maison-Seule (1822-1828), Bourg-St.Andéol (1846-1852), Aubenas (1852-1879;1895-1906; 1913-1926), Vernoux (1849-1903), and secondary schools in Feyzin (1827-1847), Privas (1828-1872). Would they now go to Canada? It would have to be a voluntary undertaking. No one volunteered, except an Irish scholastic, a teacher of English in Annonay, William Flannery. Then the Lord seemed to intervene again in the person of a layman and successful businessman from Toronto, Mr. S.G. Lynn. He visited Annonay June 5, 1852, had dinner at the college and chatted at length with two teachers of English, Flannery and O'Toole. The college chronicler recorded the event: "This providential visit has done a great deal of good. It has stirred up the interest of our young confreres... It has been the occasion of a greater determination on the part of those confreres who are to leave at the end of July with this businessman". In the ensuing years the motherhouse in Annonay was to make considerable sacrifice in manpower and money to get the mission foundations in Canada off to a good start: Toronto 1852; Sandwich 1856, 1870; Owen Sound 1863.
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The taking of vows
At Bishop de la Brunière's bidding, Tourvieille consented in 1851 to a profession of vows for the Basilian community (poverty, chastity, obedience, stability). The superior general saw it as an official approval of what was already being practised in the association; but for others, such as Julien Actorie, it was merely a step in the direction of what the Church expected of regular religious congregations.
Taken according to the constitutions, which had not yet received final approval from Rome, the vow of poverty was to become a disputed question. The Basilian constitutions allowed each priest member to dispose freely of 200 francs a year, roughly $40, plus his mass stipends and casuals; but they also recommended that he live a simple and detached life. Money was not to accumulate from one year to the next; any annual surplus had to be given for some charitable purpose, usually to help needy students at Sainte Barbe. Such a modified or `mitigated' vow of poverty helped to reconcile two tendencies among Basilians at the time, those who thought of themselves as a society of secular priests, similar in structure to the Society of Saint Sulpice, and those who aspired to a stricter form of religious life, of the kind Julien Tracol and André Charmant had experienced during their brief stay in the Jesuit novitiate at Avignon. It also suited Tourvieille, who wrote in June 1852: "By taking it according to the Constitutions we would have no other obligations than those of all good priests". In other words this form of the vow of poverty would keep the Basilians close in spirit and practice to the secular clergy from whose ranks they had come and whose aspirants they formed in the schools and minor seminaries. But it did not suit the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars in Rome, as was evident every time the Basilians made application for recognition as religious in the canonical sense.
The taking of the four vows did not make the association any more attractive. New recruits were few and far between. In 1856 Julien Actorie wrote: "It is certain that we are as close as possible to nothingness and despair; I see deep discouragement all around me...we are growing weaker and weaker, and however little this progressive decline continues we shall soon reach zero. Perhaps the moment has come to examine seriously whether we do not need to concentrate our feeble resources which are much too scattered and insufficient in every way". One could rationally conclude that the Basilians were going nowhere except towards extinction.
Renewed hope
Upon his election as third superior general in 1859 Julien Actorie found himself at the head of a community that numbered only 23 priests, 9 of whom were over fifty. Rather than expand the field of the Basilian apostolate, Actorie set about drawing up clearer constitutions, a process in which he involved every member of the association. He moved the novitiate, or what passed for a novitiate, from the college in Privas to its own house at Feyzin. He also purchased a house near Sainte Barbe in Annonay for a separate scholasticate. The fruits of his endeavours soon began to show: 15 young men entered the novitiate in 1863, and at the September ordinations of 1864 4 candidates received tonsure, 8 received minor orders, 4 the subdiaconate, 5 the diaconate and 1 the priesthood.
Then death struck suddenly: Actorie died October 28, 1864 of a cerebral hemhorrage. He had, however, the year previous, obtained from Pope Pius IX a decree of approbation of the Basilian community.
According to the decree the Basilians were recognized as a pious institute of pontifical right, but the text also included the term 'pious congregation.' As for the constitutions which Actorie had submitted, final approval was not yet granted; certain sections needed a more careful wording, in particular, those dealing with spiritual governance, scholastic formation, and the superior general's powers.
Actorie's successor in office, Jean Mathieu Soulerin (1865-1879), expanded the influence of the community beyond the diocese of Viviers. With a steady growth in numbers, the community felt strong enough in 1866 to take charge of a clerical school in Périgueux, near Bordeaux, where the Basilians laboured until they were expelled in 1903. They operated a classical college in Blidah, Algeria, 1868-1903, another in Bourg-St-Andéol, Ardèche, 1872-1880, and yet another in Châteauroux, Indre, halfway between Annonay and Paris, 1875-1882. In America they staffed a minor seminary in Louisville, Ohio, 1867-1873; and in 1870 they returned to Assumption College, Sandwich, this time to stay. As the dates indicate, not all of these endeavours were long lasting, but they serve to show the willingness with which the Basilians came to the aid of various bishops who requested their services as Christian educators.
Perhaps they over-extended themselves. Cardinal Guibert of Paris, former bishop of Viviers, thought so, and pleaded repeatedly with Soulerin to devote more attention to the careful formation of the members, as Rome requested. There is evidence in the records that religious discipline in the community had slackened as Soulerin became more incapacitated and neared his death in 1879.
Serious threats
The fifth superior general, Adrien Fayolle, inherited a community in need of a strong leader, not just to restore a greater respect for religious authority and regularity, but to face the problems posed by the socialist programme of the Third French Republic. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 had left many bitter memories within France. As one French historian put it: "To say Republican in 1871 was to say adversary of the Catholic Church". Catholic schools, and especially religious educators, became the prime target of the Socialists' platform once they came to power in 1879 after the resignation of Marshal MacMahon. Jules Grévy became the president of the Republic, Léon Gambetta presided over the chamber of deputies, and the ministry of Public Instruction went to Jules Ferry, "that man unfortunately famous for the dechristianization of the schools."
From the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, with the law of 3 Messidor Year XII (1804), the only "authorized" religious congregations of men in France were the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the Lazarists, the Sulpicians, the Foreign Missions of Paris, the Holy Ghost Fathers. These congregations had been allowed to exist legally because of their work with the poor in France and their missions in foreign countries where France had vested interests. The others, together with the new congregations which came into existence in the 19th century, were merely tolerated, and were of course "unauthorized." The controversial Decrees of 1880 were levelled primarily at the Jesuits, but they affected all teaching orders. The famous Article VII stated that no one could conduct an establishment of public or private education, nor accept any teaching post therein, if he belonged to an unauthorized religious congregation. The Jesuits were expelled from the major cities, Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, and even from small centres such as Lalouvesc and Notre Dame d'Ay in the Ardèche. The Dominicans, Franciscans and Benedictines fared little better. At least 216 houses of male religious were closed by the police in the course of 1880 and some 5,643 male religious were forced to leave France. In the four or five years following the rout of 1880 passions gradually died down, and many religious, the Jesuits excepted, quietly reoccupied their premises.
Basilians as secular priests in 1880
The French government allowed the congregations to request authorization, but the religious superiors refused the offer, fearing it would leave their houses open to eventual despoliation and make their members servants of the State. They preferred to declare themselves secular priests, subject to the authority of the local bishop. It was to be a temporary arrangement. The authorities in Rome and the bishops in France saw this "secularization" as a matter of church administration, which would not affect the essential nature of the religious congregations but would make them externally acceptable to the civil authorities. The Republican laws had not at that time threatened the secular clergy.
The Basilians in France were not absolutely sure they could claim to be religious in the strict sense. They lived as such, and had been recognized by Pope Pius IX as a congregation, but their constitutions lacked definitive approval. Their main apostolate was teaching, hence, to be on the safe side, the superior general Adrien Fayolle, officially requested the bishop of Viviers to incorporate the Basilian priests into the clergy of the diocese. The bishop complied at once. Fayolle named the confreres in his letter, stating that he would henceforth consider them "truly secularized," by which he meant truly secular priests. He added: "Following such a measure...the Decrees of 29 March 1880 will prove of no avail with respect to an association which will no longer exist".
For some reason Fayolle omitted from his list of "secularized" Basilians those in non-teaching positions, such as the chaplains to convents, and the sick. One could legitimately ask to what these latter belonged if their religious institute no longer existed. Fayolle probably thought that the whole affair was a mere legal fiction, that only the teachers needed this juridical protection, and that the danger would soon pass. In fact the community did not come through the crisis of 1880 unscathed. While the Basilians were not persecuted with extradition, they had nevertheless to close their school in Bourg-St-Andéol in 1881 after the Republican municipal council refused to allocate them any more funds. They also had to close their house in Feyzin. There were, however, worse things to come at the turn of the century, and Fayolle may well have foreseen it when he authorized the foundation of a secondary school for boys in England in 1882. It opened in the city of Plymouth in the autumn of 1883 and moved to a suburb called Beaconfield in 1884. The same year Fayolle opened a novitiate there. Plymouth could be a life-line for the French confreres as well as a possible link with the community in America.
Between 1880 and the end of the century, the forces of anticlericalism, laicism (the values of a Godless and purely secular state) and Freemasonry gained momentum in France. They were the moving forces of the Third French Republic which hoped to settle some unfinished business of the headier days of the French Revolution. "What we must safeguard above all," cried Jean Jaurès in a speech in parliament, "is the idea that there is no such thing as sacred truth. The greatest thing in the world is the sovereign liberty of the human spirit". The State and the Church were once again on a collision course.
The great rout of 1903
Fayolle died suddenly of a heart attack in 1898, and to his successor, Noël Durand, fell the unenviable task of presiding over the dissolution, despoliation and dispersal of the Basilian Community in France. With one law after another in the early years of the 20th century, the Republican government under the leadership of Emile Combes made a clean sweep of religious congregations, obliging the members to return to the lay state or become part of the secular clergy, legally, with no ulterior motives. Property, buildings, furnishings were sold by auction, most of the proceeds going to pay the legal fees, especially those of the liquidators. The suppression of the religious became known as the events of 1903.
With the help of Bishop Bonnet in Viviers, and bishops in other dioceses, Durand was able to find employment for most of the 90 French confreres in a parish or chaplaincy. Some were forced to live with and be dependent upon their families, and a few existed in conditions bordering on destitution. By 1905 a small group of Basilians were able to take up their teaching again in the college in Annonay, and later, in the minor seminary in Aubenas. But for all practical purposes the religious life of the community in France was interrupted for almost twenty years. With no new recruits, hence no ordinations until that of Charles Roume in 1929, the French community suffered a blow from which it never fully recovered.
Why the general council did not make better use of the spacious house in England remains unanswered. Probably Durand thought the sale of the property would help to finance needy confreres dispersed in France. The college of Mary Immaculate at Beaconfield closed as a Basilian school in July 1899. Did any French confreres come to America in those critical years? Only one priest, Ernest Martin joined his 9 French confreres in the New World. The language, the culture and the distance were deterrents for the rest. An attempt was made in 1905 to send a few young men to do their novitiate in Canada, but the experiment proved unsuccessful.
The will to survive
In their state of diaspora it would have been easy for the Basilians in France to let their community die out after the events of 1903, but some strong-willed individuals under the leadership of Julien Giraud were determined to rebuild the ruins. When the American branch of the Basilians appeared strong enough to look after its own affairs, and seemed bent on doing so in their own way, those French confreres who had kept some semblance of religious community while teaching at the college in Annonay and at the minor seminary in Aubenas decided in 1921 to ask Rome to recognize them as a distinct congregation. By the Decree of 14 June 1922 they became the Congregation of Priests of St. Basil of Viviers, and the Basilians in America became the Congregation of Priests of St. Basil of Toronto.
Part II of this paper will be a summary of those events in America which led up to the division of the one Basilian family into two distinct congregations in 1922, and an examination of the significance of this date in our Basilian history.
The significance of 1922
After the first native Canadian, Michael Ferguson, was ordained in 1863, the growth of the Basilian community in the New World continued slowly but steadily over the rest of that century. In 1903 there were 60 Basilians in America, 51 priests (9 of whom were French from France) and 9 scholastics; by 1922 they numbered 91 members, of whom 59 were priests (3 of them from France) and 32 scholastics. The expansion of their fields of endeavour was also significant. St. Michael's College and St. Basil's parish in Toronto dated from 1852 and 1856 respectively, St. Mary's parish, Owen Sound, from 1863, Assumption College and Assumption parish in Sandwich from 1870; Basilians also took on the direction of St. John the Baptist parish, Amherstburg in 1878, St. Anne's, Detroit, 1886, Holy Rosary, Toronto, 1892, St. Basil's College, Waco, 1899, St. Thomas High School, Houston, 1900, St. Mary's Seminary, Laporte, 1901, St. Thomas College, Chatham, N.B., 1910, not to mention six other parishes in which their presence was more or less short-lived. They moved the novitiate from Beaconfield to Toronto in 1892, and while the scholasticate had various locations, it finally settled in the former, thoroughly renovated, orphanage at 21 St. Mary Street, Toronto, in 1926, and became St. Basil's Seminary. The growth cannot be said to be dramatic, but it was considerable nonetheless, given the relatively small size of the community, and there is no doubt that the work of the Basilians touched the lives of many people. It is good to recall these basic facts, the brighter side of our panoramic picture, as we review the problems which the community experienced in America prior to 1922.
Administrative difficulties
The administrative difficulties arose largely from a lack of precision in the government section of the constitutions. For administrative convenience, as early as 1883 the general council in France recognized the Canadian mission as a `province' with its centre in Toronto, although the territory was not at that time officially set up as a canonical province. The `provincial' was the superior of St. Michael's College, Charles Vincent, who in addition to his two local councillors had two provincial councillors. These four councillors, with the superior, made up the provincial council. (See Appendix for a handy chart: "Outline of the Development of Basilian Government"). They were regularly elected in a provincial chapter, not appointed by the superior general and his council. The Canadian and American confreres liked that democratic approach to their local government.
Suddenly, in 1894, a Latin version of the revised constitutions arrived from France containing the following sentence:
The Provincial has two councillors, each chosen for three years by the Superior General.
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The number of provincial councillors had been reduced from four to two, and they would be the choice of the superior general, not of the provincial capitulants. One might think that the provincial at the time, Victorin Marijon, would be disturbed at such a radical change in the regional government; but it turned out, after a frantic investigation on the part of Daniel Cushing, Robert McBrady, Thomas Hayes, Henry Carr and Michael V. Kelly, leader of the inquiry, that it was Marijon himself who had inserted the objectionable sentence into the text. Needless to say, the province continued to recognize four provincial councillors, but its confidence in the provincial had been shaken.
What was Marijon afraid of? Marijon feared that an over-hearty provincial council would promote a spirit of democracy and independence, deleterious in its effects on community life. A young community in America needed the wisdom and experience of the French confreres.
In 1901 Marijon sent out a letter convoking a provincial chapter in Canada. The letter contained an important change in the rules governing the election of delegates as set out in the constitutions. The change stated that all superiors, even those of small houses, would be members ex officio of the provincial chapter. The new ruling would add five non-elected members to the number of capitulants, all of them of a mind of the French-dominated general council. Again M.V. Kelly, acting as spokesman for the confreres in America, opposed the provincial and prevented the change from being put into effect. He and others of his mind had reason to believe that the French-speaking officers of the Basilian administration had little or no appreciation of the special character and needs of the Canadian-American foundations, especially the schools.
Undaunted, and undoubtedly sincere in his efforts, Marijon seized a new opportunity to curtail the powers of the provincial council. In 1905 at the annual retreat at St. Michael's College he read a letter from the superior general, Durand, in which the Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome seemed to promulgate an irreversible decision:
Rome does not allow what has not been erected canonically to be governed as a Province. It was therefore by mistake, albeit an involuntary one, that in 1901 and 1904 you assembled in Provincial Chapter to set up your government.
The provincial councillors in office at the time could serve the rest of their term, but after that you must conform to the spirit of the Church and modify your manner of action so as to return to a better and sounder interpretation of the directions from the Holy See. It was basically a new version of the 1894 manoeuvre.
The confreres in America wanted nothing more than to conform to the spirit of the Church and give a sound interpretation to the directives from the Holy See, but they were not sure their provincial, Marijon, would help them achieve it. When questioned about the letter during his visit to America in 1907, the superior general declared that it was never intended to have the force of law; furthermore, the Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome had had nothing to do with it. The substance of the letter had been based on the opinion of one canonist in Rome whom Marijon had consulted. Durand thought Marijon had simply misunderstood the advice given him. If the contents of the letter of 1905 had been implemented, Marijon would have been in a position to control the provincial council and the appointments of local superiors in the province. On the other hand, he seems not to have realized that his own position as provincial would have been in jeopardy. In any event, the mood of the English-speaking confreres in America had become such by 1907 that Durand judged it wise to replace Marijon as provincial. He appointed Pierre Grand in his place; but the problems troubling the community in America were not automatically resolved.
Reconciling the religious and the profane
Marijon, whether as novice master (1884-1890, 1907-1910), or provincial in America (1890-1907), or superior general (1910-1914), was convinced that many if not all of the confreres born and brought up in the New World never really acquired the true spirit of religious, whereas the confreres in France did. Recalling his experience as a novice under Marijon in 1888, M.V. Kelly wrote: "he was already telling me, me a novice, that while the members of the Community in America were good enough priests, they were completely lacking in the religious spirit." Marijon's conviction was shared by most of the Basilians in France, and certainly by Durand, who wrote as superior general: "the presence of the French is necessary in order to maintain the religious spirit and regularity among the brothers in America ."
The training of Basilian candidates for the teaching apostolate in the New World inevitably caused tension in the community. The problem was largely a matter of emphasis. The provincials, especially Marijon, had always stressed the need for a thorough training in ecclesiastical studies, while the provincial councillors necessarily thought in terms of preparing young men for work in the classroom, which meant striving for excellence in secular and profane studies. The difference in emphasis appeared most sharply whenever the provincial and his councillors disagreed over suitable candidates for the novitiate and who should or should not be recommended to renew vows.
A test case arose in 1905: three young French students, Pierre, Mollier, Roussin, applied to make their novitiate in Canada. Because of the political situation in France, where practically all novitiates of religious congregations had been closed, the provincial council agreed to admit them to the novitiate on the understanding that they return to France once professed. In 1906, after their novitiate, the three scholastics were appointed to the scholasticate in Toronto by the provincial, Marijon, and again in 1907 for another year. At the end of three years in Canada they were still not sufficiently proficient in English to be of use in the classroom, so three of the provincial councillors, Cushing, McBrady and Kelly, refused to recommend them to renewal of vows. They explained their position in a report to Durand, superior general, but their arguments fell on deaf if not angry ears. Durand deposed the three provincial councillors and appointed three in their place. Their sudden deposition shocked the community in America. These men had been duly elected, and mere opposition to the provincial was hardly grounds for deposition. Worse still, the superior general had no authority to appoint new provincial councillors.
Letters of protest went to Durand in France, and to the Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome. The latter, by a decree dated 30 November 1909, reinstated the deposed councillors; it also called for a general chapter to be held on neutral ground. In the correspondence there is ample evidence of the malaise felt by Basilians in America. Henry Carr in 1909 begged Durand to give him permission to take a leave of absence and work in a diocese for three years so that he could live "at least for a space in peace among strangers rather than in constant worry and vexation of spirit among my brothers". Daniel Cushing took a more balanced view of the lack of harmony and proposed a possible solution. Writing to Francis Forster he said: "I am very much at sea in the matter. The only solution I can see is a division into two provinces along the lines of cleavage that now exists. I am afraid neither France nor Rome can make us work harmoniously together if mutual confidence is gone -- and gone I believe it is... perhaps a division may be amicably arranged". Durand received over 30 letters protesting the deposition. The letters from confreres in France identified what they called "the Cushing-McBrady-Kelly affair" with a general spirit of rebellion and nationalism among the American confreres.
General Chapter of 1910
From July 5-10, 1910, the 17 capitulants gathered in a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, for the general chapter which Rome had required, under the presidency of a neutral moderator, Joseph Schwarz, CSSR, the procurator general of the Redemptorists. Ten of the capitulants were from France, seven from America. They were unanimous in two resolutions: i/ that two canonically erected provinces be established, one for France, one for America; ii/ that the general curia be moved from France to Ste Anne's, Detroit. In three other momentous decisions they voted 11 to 6 i/ to reduce the number of provincial councillors from 4 to 2, and have them appointed by the general council rather than elected in a provincial chapter; ii/ to empower the general council to appoint all local superiors, without necessarily consulting the provincial or his council; iii/ to elect as the new superior general Victorin Marijon.
Needless to say, the Geneva chapter created more problems than it solved. Apart from the unpopularity in America of Marijon as superior general, the struggle between the provincial council and the general council appeared destined to continue unabated. However, three weeks after it received the Geneva chapter report, the Sacred Congregation of Religious issued a decree fixing the number of provincial councillors at four and prescribing that they be elected in a provincial chapter. The two provinces of France and America were recognized, but the decree created as well the vice-province of Detroit. This latter provision was meant to pacify the French confreres in America and also to give the English speaking confreres more freedom of expression and action in their own province. The general council remained concerned, to say the least, that the provincial council would become too free in its deliberations, especially in the key areas of appointment of local superiors, recommendation of scholastics to renewal of vows, and admission of candidates to the novitiate. To some extent the Sacred Congregation of Religious shared the apprehensions of the general curia because it ordered a canonical visitation of the Basilian community and appointed Joseph Schwarz CSSR to be the apostolic visitor with supreme authority until the visitation was completed.
The canonical visitation of 1911
Schwarz found himself unable to make the official visitation in America, so the apostolic delegate in Ottawa, Archbishop Stagni, appointed a Jesuit father, François-Xavier Renaud, in his place. It was Renaud's task to interview each Basilian in America in an attempt to pinpoint the causes of the malaise and to propose suitable remedies. He worked from September 1 to November 21, 1911, meeting privately with each confrere and asking two basic questions: In your opinion what are the causes of the troubles in the Basilian community at the present time? What remedies do you suggest?
Renaud's copious notes jotted down in the course of the interviews reveal a remarkable consistency. The vast majority complained of Marijon's abuse of power as an administrator; a few blamed M.V. Kelly for fomenting trouble in his relentless efforts to establish the rights of the American province. Many called for Marijon's resignation and a few, including the new provincial, Nicholas Roche, recommended the dismissal from the community of both Marijon and Kelly.
Renaud made three recommendations in his report to the apostolic delegate: i/ that M.V. Kelly be dismissed, although the visitor was careful to add "There is absolutely no reproach to be made against his moral conduct"; ii/ that Marijon resign as superior general; iii/ if the community were to be divided into two independent branches, Marijon could remain superior general of the branch in France where the confreres were generally supportive.
It was late 1912 before the Sacred Congregation of Religious acted on the Renaud report. In its decree to the Basilian Fathers it reproved those members who had shown any lack of reverence towards the superior general. It named M.V. Kelly as one who stood out over the years as the leader of the group opposed to the administration of Marijon and the general council. Kelly received an admonition; he was deprived of both active and passive voice in community affairs. The decree called for a general chapter to be held in Rome in 1913, at which time the constitutions would be clarified on litigious points. The Sacred Congregation did not see fit to dismiss either Marijon or Kelly, nor to call for the superior general's resignation.
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General Chapter of 1913
Nine capitulants, the majority of them French, met at the Canadian College in Rome in April 1913 under the chairmanship of Monsignor Cherubini, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. Day after day they worked diligently on the articles of the Basilian constitutions to bring them into line with the norms for institutes of simple vows and to remove any ambiguity between the authority of the superior general, the provincial, and the local superiors. Once again the provincial was given two councillors, not four, to be appointed by the superior general and the general council, not elected in a provincial chapter. Had they reached a new stalemate?
The Canadian provincial, Nicholas Roche, complained in writing in the name of the American confreres and took the opportunity once again to express his discontent over Marijon's inability to govern the community or understand the American confreres' point of view. On August 14, 1913, Pope Pius X approved a new version of the Basilian constitutions for a trial period of seven years. To the dismay of Marijon and the general council, the approved version recognized the provincial chapter's right to elect the provincial and four provincial councillors.
Marijon could not accept the fact that the Sacred Congregation of Religious had altered grave decisions voted in a general chapter. While not wishing to counter the new version of the constitutions, he felt justified nonetheless in making certain modifications in the text. In particular, he made all the decisions of the provincial council dependent upon the approval of the general council. His altered version was typed, mimeographed and distributed to all the local houses. Unbeknown to him, the provincial council in Toronto had received directly from Rome a true copy of the constitutions as issued by the Sacred Congregation of Religious. A careful examination of both versions showed what changes Marijon had made. It was Rome's turn to be dismayed. When news of this latest abuse of authority reached the Holy See, the Sacred Congregation of Religious advised the apostolic delegate in Ottawa to invite Marijon to tender his resignation as superior general. Marijon accepted the invitation in his letter of 25 May 1914 to the apostolic delegate. The first general councillor, James Player, became the acting superior general, a post he was to hold until the separation of 1922. Marijon intended to return at once to France, but with the outbreak of World War I Player offered him hospitality at the curial house in Detroit. He accepted.
Enter Father Forster
Francis Forster was no stranger to the controversies that had plagued the Basilian community for years. At the time of the canonical visitation in 1911 Forster had been one of Marijon's severest critics, describing his administration when he was provincial and superior general as "tyrannical, absolute and unconstitutional". Forster went on the provincial council in Canada in 1911, became provincial in 1916 and was re-elected provincial in 1919.
When François-Xavier Granottier, a general councillor, died in 1917, the general council, by a vote of 3 to 2, chose Marijon to take his place. Despite the slings and arrows of times past, Marijon had lost none of his influence on the general councillors. He had, since 1914, been residing at Ste Anne's and presiding at meals and exercises in the curial house there. The acting superior general, Player, resident pastor at Holy Rosary, Toronto, came to Detroit only for general council meetings. Marijon, Grand, DuMouchel and Aboulin could easily outvote Player and Luke Renaud on any decision coming to them from the provincial council which they found unacceptable. One irksome item was the question of Granottier's salary which the provincial refused to pay into the general treasury. Although a paltry sum in itself, $80 per year, Granottier's salary became a sort of cause célèbre and a matter of principle in the tension that had built up between the general and the provincial councils.
Of greater moment was Forster's re-election as provincial in 1919. By a vote of 3 to 1 the general council refused to ratify it, and while the secretary general, Aboulin, thought it unnecessary to give the reasons for the refusal, he stated in a letter to Player how the majority of the general councillors felt about Forster: "Let the (provincial) Chapter elect another man or leave the post vacant... It is not enough that he should have ability; nobody denies it him; he should also be worthy... What has become of religious spirit? ... Then, the affair of Father Granottier's salary and the obstinate disobedience together with flagrant injustice". Player was to pass the letter on to the provincial chapter then in session. Forster had recourse to the apostolic delegate, and in the spring of 1920 the Congregation of Religious directed the holding of a general chapter, "for the election of the Superior General and for the discussing of the more important questions which agitate the Institute".
The general councillors drew up a petition dated 22 April 1920 asking the Congregation of Religious to call for a general chapter in Rome in September of 1920, but Player refused to sign the petition. He argued that the cost would be exorbitant since it would mean 9 capitulants travelling from Canada to Rome, and 3 from France. Besides, with the curia now in America, he thought the general chapter should be there. The petition went to the apostolic delegate, while in a separate letter Player explained his refusal to sign the petition. Rome agreed with Player and refused the petition. But when Player communicated Rome's reply to the general councillors in Detroit, Aboulin answered at once, presumably in the name of the majority of the council: "The Councillors General decide henceforth to correspond directly on all questions interesting the Society with the Apostolic Delegate to Canada". They had effectively cut themselves off from their own head.
But there was more at stake than the expense and place of the general chapter. According to the 1913 constitutions the chapter would be made up of the six members of the general curia (Player, Grand, Marijon, Renaud (Luke), DuMouchel, Aboulin) and the two provincials with four delegates, that is, two from America and two from France. A majority of the capitulants would be French. The members of the provincial chapter were only too aware of this imbalance, so they asked Forster to go to Rome with some representatives of the American province to have the composition of the general chapter changed. They wanted to prevent the election of a superior general and a curia which would almost certainly "continue our interminable strife" and thwart the work of the American confreres in their schools and parishes. Forster believed "the very life of the Community" to be threatened. Later in July the provincial council named Fathers Côté and Powell to accompany Forster to Rome; they were joined there by Player who had been on vacation in England. In Rome they presented their case for a fairer representation of the American confreres at a general chapter. Specifically they asked i/ that the members of the general curia be excluded from the coming chapter; ii/ that the chapter be composed of the French provincial and two provincial councillors, the Canadian provincial and two provincial councillors, plus one delegate for every 12 members in each province, that is, 4 delegates from France, 7 from America.
The decision of the Sacred Congregation of Religious came to Player in late February 1921 via the apostolic delegate. The general chapter was to be held at St. Michael's College, Toronto, 14 June 1921, and the composition of the chapter was to be exactly that requested by Player and Forster, which included the exclusion of the general curia.
In fact, the chapter of 1921 did not take place at all. The French confreres at their provincial chapter in Aubenas, upon hearing of Rome's decision, decided on March 31, 1921, to request complete separation from the American province. Their request met with no opposition or apparent surprise in America. After a reasonable settlement had been worked out on amicable terms, the Holy See issued the Decree of Separation 14 June 1922 whereby the Basilian community became two distinct religious congregations, the Priests of St. Basil of Viviers, France, and the Priests of St. Basil of Toronto, Canada. Within a few weeks each branch held its own general chapter. The French chose as superior general Julien Giraud, and the confreres in America chose Francis Forster.
The task facing Forster after 1922
1922, then, marks the beginning of the Basilians in America as an officially recognized religious congregation. It was one thing to have documentary proof of such a watershed in Basilian history, but quite another to translate it into reality in the daily lives of the members. Forster was faced with an enormous task. On the one hand he had to teach the confreres what it meant to be religious according to the prescriptions of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The canonical vows of poverty, chastity and obedience were essential to religious life; but there was need for a definitive and approved set of constitutions, as well as a general rule and local rules to help bring about more uniformity of religious spirit and life style. On the other hand he did not want to give his confreres the impression that their life would henceforth have to be very different. They had all joined the community in good faith, and, Marijon's remarks to the contrary notwithstanding, they believed themselves to be religious already, with a religious spirit. Very few of the confreres, Forster included, had known anything about the Roman decree of 4 May 1898 sent to Adrien Fayolle which stated clearly that the Basilians would have to consider themselves a "pious sodality, not a true congregation or religious institute" if they did not profess the regular common vow of poverty. Back in the nineteenth century, from their very beginnings, the Basilians had opted for a modified or mitigated vow of poverty. They argued that such a vow was more in keeping with the life of the secular clergy from whom they had come in the first place and whose members they formed in the minor seminaries.
Facing the demands of poverty
First it may be helpful to review the nature of the modified vow of poverty by which Basilian lived up to 1922. Its chief characteristics were i/ that the confreres retained the radical ownership of any property or monies they possessed; ii/ that the use and usufruct of the same had to have the permission of the local superior; iii/ the members received a yearly allocation or salary, $80, which they could use freely; iv/ the members could keep their mass stipends and casuals and use them as they saw fit; v/ there was to be no accumulation of funds from one year to the next. Although the monetary value of one's possessions varied from one confrere to the next, a situation which sometimes fostered a feeling of `haves' and `have nots', the confreres in general strove to live by the spirit of evangelical poverty, and any surplus they had at the end of the year went to help needy students, usually in the form of bursaries.
The general chapter of 1922 voted 14 to 2 in favour of becoming a religious congregation with the three simple vows. In the case of poverty, the "new" vow retained the first two characteristics of the "old" vow, that is, radical ownership of money and property, and permission from the local superior for the use and usufruct of the same. It required, however, that all stipends and casuals be turned into the community treasury; furthermore, there was no longer to be any regular salary. These two stipulations effectively ruled out any accumulation of funds from one year to the next. Personal money would be requested as needed from the local superior. A patrimony remained in the ownership of the individual, and could be willed to a relative. As for gifts, if they were of some value, they had to be declared to the local superior and permission was required to make use of them.
These clarifications seem not to have been spelled out at the 1922 chapter. The capitulants were in favour of the status of a canonical religious congregation, but two motions passed which downplayed somewhat the demands of the "new" vow of poverty. The first, moved by Henry Carr, read: "This chapter resolves that the Institute should in the future provide as generously as it has in the past for the needs and recreations of its members." The second, moved by M.V. Kelly, favoured the status of a religious congregation over a pia sodalitas but added that it be a religious congregation "with the least deviation from the present practice of the Institute which Rome will tolerate". Both motions passed.
The confreres had a year to think about the resolutions of the 1922 chapter. When they assembled at St. Michael's College in June 1923 for the annual retreat, a majority signed the declaration whereby they accepted the simple vow of poverty "as expressed in the Constitutions drafted by the Chapter held in August 1922..." Those who did not sign were left free to remain under the old vow, or to withdraw from the community. The Basilians in America in 1922 numbered 59 priests, 32 scholastics, 5 novices. In 1923, 3 priests decided to remain under the old vow, 9 priests and 1 scholastic withdrew from the community. By 1925 the numbers had not increased over all, 57, 32, 5 respectively, figures which left Forster uneasy. He remained convinced nonetheless that the Basilians had done the right thing. In fact, growth and expansion were just around the corner.
During his visit to Rome in May 1923 Forster had explained to the Sacred Congregation of Religious the motivations of the 1922 chapter with respect to the canonical vow of poverty: "The members of the Chapter wanted to eliminate inequalities in revenue that a limited vow of poverty rendered possible; inequalities that sooner or later would create discontent. The General Chapter had no intention or desire to impose new hardships on the members of the Institute... It wished for a change in the manner rather than in the measure of allowances to the members". Curiously, it was not the vow of poverty that concerned Forster most; rather it was the canonical title to ordination, mensae communis, which the Basilians had enjoyed over the years in good faith, but which, according to the 1922 chapter's understanding of the Code of Canon Law, was granted to religious congregations, not to pious sodalities. Referring back to the indult of May 4, 1898, Forster wrote: "Superiors General with an Indult from Rome applied for in the name of the Congregation of the Basilian Fathers had the members ordained titulo mensae communis. The Chapter took the view that this title in the Codex was reserved to Religious Congregations and that in order to make use of it we must ask Rome to continue to our Institute the status given it by Pope Pius IX and in consequence we must have the simple vow of poverty, just as other Religious Institutes." It was for this reason, according to Forster, that the chapter of 1922 felt obliged to decide in favour of the simple vow of poverty, "in order to comply with the laws of the Church, in order to secure the right to the title mensae communis for ordination." He added: "If the Chapter had been able to convince itself that Rome would allow the Institute to use the title mensae communis while retaining a modified vow of poverty, no change would have been made in the articles of the Constitutions dealing with poverty".
The Sacred Congregation of Religious had no great problem with the use of the title mensae communis for Basilians. If a sanatio were required for past irregularities, it would be granted. The proper wording of the Basilian constitutions was another matter, in particular, the section on poverty. Writing to Forster in 1928 one of the consultors in Rome expressed dissatisfaction: "In regard to the vow of Poverty, the present Constitutions are to me rather unsatisfactory. There is the intention to make the vow of Poverty, as it is usually made in other Congregations with simple vows, and at the same time, a desire to retain some rights in regard to property and the use of property... It is difficult to see how, in practice, such rights or limitations of the vow will not result in the destruction of the spirit of poverty. I doubt very much that the Commission will agree to leave them as they stand". Forster argued that retaining some rights to property and the use of property referred largely to gifts of trifling value, and he felt sure Rome was not interested in trifles. Nevertheless, the pertinent articles of the constitutions were not specific; they could be interpreted as referring to things of greater value.
In retrospect one can see now that the confreres in America had difficulty coming to a clear understanding of the demands of the vow of poverty for the simple reason that Forster himself discovered only gradually after 1922 what all was involved in the simple vow. Furthermore, it was one thing to know the prescriptions of the new vow, but another to put them into practice. By the time of Forster's death in 1929 the section on poverty in the constitutions still had not received definitive approval from Rome.
Meanwhile...
Meanwhile the work of the community in America continued in the schools and parishes. Some new undertakings proved to be commitments of long duration. Our community acquired Strawberry Island in 1922 as a summer home for the scholastics; Basilian teachers went to Aquinas Institute, Rochester, to work, first from 1927 to 1932, and then from 1937 on. Catholic Central High School, Detroit, opened in 1928 under Basilian direction; also in 1928 the Basilians took charge of St. Anne's parish, Houston. The next year, 1929, saw the founding of the Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Some earlier endeavours were relatively short-lived: the Basilian presence in St. Mary's Seminary, Laporte, went from 1901-1911, and in St. Basil's College, Waco, from 1899-1915. Basilians also taught and administered in St. Thomas College, Chatham, N.B. from 1910 to 1923.
By 1928 Basilians in America numbered 147 members : 85 priests, 39 scholastics, 23 novices. It was an increase of 53 members over the figures of 1925. The numbers continued to increase over the next four decades.
With his tragic drowning in 1929, Forster did not live to see the constitutions definitively approved by Rome in 1938. He had succeeded however in raising the consciousness of Basilians to the necessity of having clear governing rules in writing. He also strove in his own directives to superiors and pastors to have hem observed:
Without the general faithful observance of the constitution no religious society can continue to exist, for a society must be one and it cannot become one and continue one unless all its members have a common norm in the form of a written constitution that is independent of the varying wills and aims of succeeding superiors. The constitution must not be permitted to become a dead letter. We must constantly keep it before our eyes and follow its prescriptions.
Forster also attached great importance to rules, both general and local:
I want to say a word about the wisdom of clinging to the rule of the Basilians for both staff and students. It was a rule built upon experience and it had results when it was faithfully kept. Our failures are to be ascribed in large measure to its neglect...Religious cannot be made without a rule and they cannot succeed in their work without an observance of their rule. Catholic boys cannot be built into good, stanch Catholic men unless in their school days they are subjected to discipline.
Forster held up an ideal to Basilians teachers and pastors alike. It remains now to be seen what efforts have been made to achieve that ideal or to forge a new one.
How far have we come?
Like a two-edged sword the above title in the form of a question could cut two ways. It could mean how far we have come in measuring up to the ideal of religious life as undertaken by the community in 1922. It could also be interpreted as how far we have moved away from that ideal to forge for ourselves a new ideal. It is not a question uniquely applicable to our situation as a community. All religious communities, usually at general chapters, have to discuss where they are at and where they are going, taking into consideration that times and needs change. More fundamentally perhaps it is a question that each member has to ask himself in a personal révision de vie. For the purpose of this study we look to the records to see what our community understood religious life to be after 1922 and what evidence there is of efforts to live it in our houses.
Forster's legacy
In letters to superiors and pastors Forster as superior general tried to set forth a religious ideal for Basilians in the local houses. The following excerpts were written by him in 1923:
-- When a member of the Institute is appointed to the post of religious superior of one of our schools...he is placed at the head of a group of religious and it becomes his business to provide that religious life be maintained in the house entrusted to his keeping.
-- It becomes his business to see that each member of his staff does his task efficiently.
-- It is the duty of the superior to know the constitution well, to observe it himself and to have it observed by the members of his house.
-- The constitution should be read publicly twice a year. The purpose of the reading is to remind the members of our duties as Basilians.
-- The constitution prescribes a meeting of the local council once a month...At these meetings the council should discuss such questions as these: Are the religious exercises well attended? Are the teachers doing their work in a satisfactory way? Is the house being well lighted, well heated? Is it kept clean? What about the table in the dining room? Is it satisfactory? Is there neatness about the house and premises? Are the students working well? Do they come to class prepared? What about work in the studyhall and in private rooms? What about the discipline of the students? What about their piety? How can we overcome the weaknesses that appear in the teaching of certain men? What steps should be taken to correct any abuse that exists?
Forster reminded superiors of the monthly report they were to send in to the superior general, and the local councillors of their report every three months, on matters of religious discipline and the academic, financial, material condition of the local house or school. A similar letter went to all pastors and to their assistants.
Forster's zeal for the exact observance of constitutions and rule appears not to have been shared by all the members. In his report to the chapter of business in 1925 the superior general found it necessary to call the members to order:
The reports thus far received from local superiors respecting the observance of the rule in their houses would indicate a healthy condition generally. But I will be blunt enough to state that the General Council does not share in full measure the optimism of the local heads. They find too many absences from spiritual exercises, too indifferent an attitude, sometimes an irreverent bearing on the part of some present at the exercises, too much leaving the house apart from regular afternoons mentioned in the rule, a serious disregard of the rule for retiring (10 pm), with consequent irregularity at morning meditation, too little regard for the rule of silence and a great neglect to wear the cassock at all times of the day when we are at home... I know definitely that prescriptions of the constitutions are constantly ignored. (Forster gives two examples: the failure of most confreres to make a last will, and of local councillors to send in their reports.) When the constitution is treated with such indifference, it can be taken for granted that the rule meets with even less consideration.
By insisting on external observance, a pledge as it were of internal fidelity, Forster was doing what all major superiors believed to be their duty. By the same token, failure to live up to all the prescriptions of the written law was by no means peculiar to the Basilian community. The challenge Forster faced was unique in this sense, however, that he had to make religious in the canonical understanding of the term out of men who were used to a more informal, less regulated form of community life. He knew that old habits do not die easily; hence the importance of careful training in the novitiate and the scholasticate. His appointment of Louis Bondy to the office of superior of St. Basil's Seminary (1928-1934) was a visible sign to the community that a whole new generation of young Basilians would acquire both a serious intellectual training and a greater appreciation of religious life as understood by the Church and prescribed by the laws of the day. A pattern was set for the next thirty years.
To the chapter of 1925 Forster spoke of a "platform" he had for the community. It included such recommendations as: a program in the schools to foster vocations, a university degree for every scholastic capable of it, graduate studies for "men of promise", better courses in theology in the scholasticate. Another plank in his platform of 1925 gave Basilians a new sense of identity and mission:
To aim at taking charge of high schools for the Bishops and clergy of the United States and Canada. The field is immense and as far as I know there is no Institute of priests on this side of the Atlantic attempting to serve in this field. With degrees and faculty training there can be no doubt that we can make a success of the work.
Forster admitted there were temporal as well as spiritual advantages:
it demands a relative small outlay and would yield a much more lucrative return than institute owned colleges.
A seed had been sown and would mature especially during the generalates of Henry Carr (1930-1942) and Edmund McCorkell (1942-1954).
By December 1926 Forster felt obliged to address another long letter to local superiors. They were to speak out with firmness in regular conferences on things spiritual:
Our members have entered religious life in order that their individual lives may be directed by a rule and by the living voice of the superior. It is a religious heresy to hold that a member of a community must be left to work out his own salvation.
Forster touched on a number of points in this letter where failure on the part of the superior to speak of possible abuses could lead to a serious deterioration of the quality of religious life in a local community. On the question of piety he wrote:
Some men will grow into a sort of forgetfulness that the Divine Office is a prayer. They will be content if, day by day, they say it in its entirety from the Aperi to the Sacrosanctae... They will develop the habit of deferring the Office to the very end of the day. Then they will say it with undue haste... The same carelessness will follow some members to the altar. They will say Mass without consulting the Ordo... without due attention to the rubrics.... Thanksgiving after Mass will be hurried through. Sometimes it will be made in a sitting posture... or it will be made outside the church or chapel altogether contrary to the practice of the community from the beginning. At spiritual exercises postures will be assumed that scandalize the newly professed members and simply invite sleep. The private visit to the Blessed Sacrament will be put off to an unseasonable hour or neglected altogether.
In a similar style Forster urged superiors to speak in conferences of punctuality for common exercises and classes, of the rule of silence, of restricted hours for recreation, of work and study. He placed special emphasis on the need for order, neatness, tidiness.: "If a religious house is untidy or dirty , the laity conceive about as much disgust as they do in the case of misconduct... there is no excuse for untidy rooms, untidy desks, untidy closets or wardrobes in a religious house. There is just one reason for it and that reason is laziness".
In a final paragraph Forster reinforced the role of the superior as a watchful guardian of souls:
In conclusion let me repeat that religious ought not to be left to work out their own salvation. They are entitled to the assistance of an enforced rule and to the guidance of their superior. A house will not prosper if a superior is not vigilant to see weaknesses and abuses or if he is too timid to speak... A blind and dumb superior and a timid superior is a dangerous man. On the contrary a superior who is watchful, never permitting abuses to creep in or to go unrebuked, who is insistent on regularity, who stands for order and neatness throughout his house will prove a blessing to his confreres and find his administration a success.
These lengthy excerpts may serve to show what sort of religious superior Forster himself was and what he expected of Basilians now that they were canonical religious. They may also help us to assess the distance we have travelled between then and now. What effect did Forster's indefatigable efforts have on the Basilian community? A few passages from records after his death may give us some idea .
The post-Forster era
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If one can judge by the report of the superior of St. Thomas College, Houston, to the general chapter of 1933, it would appear that Forster's exhortations had been heeded. John O'Loane, not a man to countenance laxity in the matter of rule or constitutions, was able to report positively on the state of the local community: "During the past year the religious life of the house has been good. The rule has been well observed by all the members... The fraternal spirit has been commendable."
Likewise, from St. Michael's College, Toronto, the superior, Henry Bellisle, submitted a favourable report, noting however that the confreres lived a life of poverty but failed to grasp the spirit of the vow:" The depression has brought home to many of us the value of money. There has been a lessening amongst the members of expenditure and a quite a general recognition of the necessity of economy. There is as yet very little appreciation of the necessity of practising the spirit of the vow of poverty... The members are constantly thinking of the requirements of the vow in regard to poverty and have very little concern with practising its spirit." Bellisle gave no specific examples. It would take time for the community to understand how the religious vow of poverty affected the outlook of each individual and the common life.
Henry Carr
Henry Carr, superior general from 1930-1942, was less canonically minded than his predecessor in office, Francis Forster. Carr felt that the law was intended primarily for big orders and congregations, and that some prescriptions did not apply in a small congregation, a family of sorts, where everyone knew everyone else. He devoted more of his attention to the expansion of the Basilian apostolate. At the 1928 chapter he and Edmund McCorkell had pressed the idea of an institute of higher learning in mediaeval studies. The foundation became a reality in 1929, with Carr as its first president. By 1934 he had sent seven priests on graduate studies to prepare for work in The Institute of Mediaeval Studies. He also bolstered the high school apostolate, raising the percentage of priests teachers in high schools from 39% in 1930 (36 out of 92) to 50% in 1942 (86 out of 173). St. Mary's Boys High School in Calgary came under Basilian direction in 1933, and, as mentioned earlier, Basilians returned to Aquinas Institute, Rochester, New York, in 1937. It should also be noted here that St. Thomas More College, Saskatoon, a liberal arts college in the University of Saskatchewan, dates from 1936, founded by Leonard Rush and Gerry Anglin. Furthermore, in a spirit of evangelization, Carr encouraged missionary work. It began with a visit to the Mexican immigrants living to the west of Houston in 1935, in an area of some 5,000 square miles. By 1939 the Basilians had their first Mission Center, at Rosenberg, from which the missionary efforts among Hispanics continued to expand.
Carr's report to the general chapter in 1936 was positive in tone, at once commendatory and encouraging. "You will find in the reports of the local Superiors the condition of religious discipline throughout the Community. I have nothing to add to this except to indicate in a brief general statement that the religious discipline in all the houses has been uniformly good." He singled out the community at Assumption College, Windsor, as worthy of special mention for the sacrifices the members had made in the interests of the college.
Edmund McCorkell
Although the numbers of confreres grew steadily during Carr's generalate, the Basilian community in America in 1942 was still relatively small for the expanse and scope of its activities: 171 priests, 107 scholastics, 17 novices. By the time McCorkell finished his mandate as superior general in 1954, the community numbered 312 priests, 196 scholastics, 23 novices, for a total of 531 members. Those twelve years, 1942-1954, saw the opening of two new liberal arts colleges, the University of St. Thomas, Houston, in 1947, and St. John Fisher College, Rochester, N.Y. in 1951. In Canada a high school for boys, St. Charles College, opened in Sudbury in 1951; also that same year an entry was made into the University of British Columbia with St. Mark's College, Vancouver. It cannot be said that McCorkell gave a new vision to the community; rather he consolidated the work Carr had begun and carried it forward with enthusiasm. McCorkell will be remembered as the one who restored unity to the Basilian family when he, in full collaboration with Charles Roume, successfully negotiated the reunion of the French and American branches at the general chapter of 1954. His successor in office, George Flahiff, effected the decree of union in Annonay on the feast of St. Michael the archangel, 29 September 1955. This happy event added a significant number of young and energetic French confreres to the Basilian congregation.
Towards a better understanding of the vow of poverty
One of the decisions reached by the general chapter of 1954 touched on the question of religious poverty, in particular, gifts to confreres. It read:
This Chapter accepts with filial obedience the observation made by the Sacred Congregation of Religious on the occasion of the last quinquennial report, viz., `Superiors shall be on their guard lest religious poverty be relaxed, especially in the matter of gifts from outsiders. In this delicate matter let there be observed especially the norms of the common law, the constitutions, and the accepted opinions of approved authors'.
An instructive case arose in 1956 when a priest confrere in America asked the superior general, George Flahiff, if he could accompany his uncle and aunt to Europe for about six weeks in the summer, all expenses paid. The offer was a personal gift to the nephew and it would cost the community nothing. The request received a negative reply, but Flahiff took the trouble to explain at some length why he could not grant the permission. His explanation presents an insightful summary of how poverty was considered in the eras of both Carr and McCorkell:
The request you make is one that probably would have received an affirmative reply quite readily a few years ago. Father McCorkell was most generous in according permission for trips to Europe such as you mentioned. It was not, however, without certain misgivings as to whether our practice was in keeping with the views of the Holy See in such matters. With this in mind, he asked Fr. (V.L.) Kennedy to make enquiries, when Father replaced Fr. McLaughlin at Rome in the Spring of 1952. Father Kennedy did so with his accustomed thoroughness, going right to consultors of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. As a result of his findings, Fr. McCorkell was forced to alter his position during the last two years of his term of office and I myself find no way around the interpretation given us four years ago, that is, in so far as trips that are tantamount to personal gifts from relatives or friends; that the Community itself should still send a man for purposes of study or for other good reasons is still possible. Perhaps it will help if I explain.
Most Religious, and certainly Basilians, have been learning a great deal in recent years about an obligation of the religious life that had been seriously neglected, if not ignored. Questions having to do with gifts, spending, etc., were usually settled in the light of the obligations that arise from our simple vow of poverty, viz., that no use can be made of them without permission. It was more or less assumed that permission could be given for practically anything and perhaps too, that a Superior was quite unreasonable if he did not generally grant such permissions, especially if it was not costing the Community anything. But this was to take no account of Canon 594 #1 which states clearly the obligation of all religious to lead the common life, even in matters of clothing, furniture, nourishment, etc. Some had thought of the common life as meaning primarily that everyone should have exactly the same. This is not unconnected with it, I suppose, but rather as a consequence. The common life seems to mean that we live out of a common fund, rather than what we get as individuals, whether as gifts or as earnings. If what is permitted to us were to be in terms of this latter, then there would indeed be grave discrepancies according as one's relatives and friends had more or less money, were more or less generous. Fr. Kennedy was told in no uncertain terms that there are certain permissions that a Superior simply cannot grant, otherwise he is failing to see the observance of the religious life, which is governed by more than just the practices relating strictly to the vow of poverty as such. The chief way in which the common life is offended against is by way of `personal' gifts; and by `personal' gifts is meant not only moneys and objects received but also exceptional trips, vacations, etc., financed by others than the Community.
Following the principles stated in this letter. Flahiff found himself constrained to refuse a number of similar requests in the late 1950's . In each case he painstakingly explained the reasons for the refusal. He felt it his duty "to try to help people live the religious life more perfectly, even though, it involves real and sometimes painful sacrifices . There was a time", he wrote to a confrere in 1959, "when we did not understand all the implications of the religious life and we seemed to be freer and easier in regard to some of these things. Pope Pius XII made repeated pleas to religious to take their whole way of life more seriously and be the shining example of fidelity that they were meant to be in the Church."
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From the letter to the spirit
In 1959 Pope John XXIII called for an ecumenical council, which in fact took place from 1962 to 1965 and became known as the Second Vatican Council. It was to be an updating of the Roman Catholic Church, an aggiornamento meant to make the Church more relevant in the modern world, while maintaining utter fidelity to the spirit and teachings of the Divine Founder. At the same time the pope called for a revision of the Code of Canon Law, and here too, as for the council, he had in mind "the renewal of Christian life." Pope Paul VI in Ecclesiae sanctae asked religious orders and congregations to reformulate their constitutions and rules in keeping with the spirit of the council.
For us Basilians, our Constitutions, which had been approved definitively in 1938, became The Basilian Way of Life, our basic document, a "personal and communal guide for our life", to which were added in separate documents Basilian Government and Basilian Customs. Although they contain the juridical norms defining the character, aims and means of the congregation, these documents, like those of the Second Vatican Council, and indeed like the revised Code itself, are more inspirational in their expression than were the texts Basilians of the post-1922 era had been accustomed to; they invite rather than prescribe. The same can be said for the basic documents of most other institutes of consecrated life. In common with all Christ's faithful, christifideles, the members of these institutes are engaged in the pursuit of perfect charity, but they are called by God to adopt special means by which to achieve that goal, namely, the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, obedience.
The vow of poverty, which Basilians have tried over the years to define and live according to their tradition, flows henceforth from Christ's words in the gospel: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The invitational nature of the text in The Basilian Way of Life Nos. 14-24, is quite in keeping with the style used in the revised Code of Canon Law, which states: "The evangelical counsel of poverty in imitation of Christ, who for our sake was made poor when he was rich, entails a life which is poor in reality and in spirit, sober and industrious, and a stranger to riches." The Code is careful to note that all three counsels are to be lived in accordance with each institute's own law.
The Basilian Constitutions took roughly 116 years to acquire definitive approval from Rome, 1822-1938. Our updated documents after the Second Vatican Council took but 16 years, 1967-1983, a remarkable achievement in itself, for which the superiors general in those difficult years, Joseph Wey (1961-1973) and James Hanrahan (1973-1981), can rightly claim much of the credit. Whether The Basilian Way of Life and the related documents have become, as Ulysse Paré, superior general 1981-1989, has called them "a living bond of unity and shared inspiration in the entire Basilian family" is the question still facing us today.
Compared to the Benedictines, Cistercians, Franciscans and other great orders in the Church, our Basilian history is a short one. It may not edify in every respect, but neither does it disedify. It is our covenant with the Lord, worked out in trial and travail over almost two centuries; we have reason to be proud of it. We can only be thankful for what God has accomplished through our confreres and all those who laboured with them. It has not been in great numbers that we have made an impact on society, but in the quality and dedication of a few. We have made mistakes, at times we have been slow to understand and act, but we have never given up hope. Anyone who sighs in despair that our community is not going anywhere has yet to perceive how God can do great things with very little, and even with the very imperfect.
The two eras when our community seemed to flourish and attract new recruits, following the death of Julien Actorie, 1865, and Francis Forster, 1929, coincide with a renewed effort on the part of the members to live up to a religious ideal. Actorie had good reason to think the little group of his day could well dwindle and die out, but he had the courage to say that even if they were reduced to two or three members, they should start over and continue the work of the Institute. If we still believe today that the Holy Spirit can move the right ones to say the right things at the right time, and to translate words into action, then we present Basilians, and the young recruits yet to join us, will set about with renewed zeal to bring about "the kingdom of Jesus, the kingdom of truth and justice, of love and peace."
Copyright © 1998, 2002 - Basilian Fathers of Toronto
