Subiaco starting fundraising drive

With an eye on the future, the monks of Subiaco Abbey in Logan County have begun an $8 million capital campaign. The Benedictines hope to raise money to provide for aging members of the religious community and to build and renovate facilities at its boarding school.

Abbot Jerome Kodell said the campaign includes four areas of need. The goal is to raise $4 million to provide for health-care and retirement funds for older monks, as well as $3 million to build and renovate buildings for academy students. The plan also calls for $500,000 to finance education for new monks and $552,000 for infrastructure improvements and to renovate the Coury House retreat center.

Kodell said members of the Benedictine community, which has been serving in Arkansas for 135 years, realized they needed to plan for the future and the needsof the aging community.

“Religious communities across the country are having trouble because of diminishing numbers and aging members and the bishops are trying to help them look to the future,” he said.

With help from the National Religious Retirement Organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the community assessed their needs and came up with a master plan. Kodell said that like most religious communities Subiaco has no retirement fund because money coming into the monastery has always been used for ministry.

In addition to the retirement and health-care funds, Kodell said money is needed to help educate new members. The community has added 10 members in the last four years and it costs between $25,000 and $30,000 a year to provide education for each monk. This includes years of seminarytraining.

“It’s a new problem, a good problem,” Kodell said of the growth within the community.

Including the newcomers, the community now has 43 members.

Kodell said funds will also be used to build a new dormitory for students at the academy and to renovate the main residence hall so it can be used for classroom space and offices. They also hope to renovate the performing arts center.

Last year 183 students attended the school, which includes boys in grades 7-12.

The Coury House, which serves almost 6,000 guests a year who come to Subiaco for retreats and programs, will also be renovated. Technology upgrades are planned for the abbey, as well.

The history of Subiaco Abbey dates to 1878 when three monks arrived from St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana to establish the new religious community. The Rev. Hugh Assenmacher said the abbot of the Indiana monastery was asked by the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Co. to send monks to minister to German immigrants settling along the rail line. The company offered land and the monastery was founded.

Assenmacher, who came to Subiaco as a high school freshman in 1947 and joined the monastery in 1952, said the new community of monks was soon adopted by the motherhouse of St. Meinrad, the Abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland. Most of the early monks came to Arkansas directly from the European country and found the area to be quite different from their homeland.

“They almost died from the heat,” he said.

The original monastery, first a log cabin and then additional frame buildings, was built about a mile across the valley from the current location. But the monks wanted a permanent facility and they discovered sandstone in the surrounding hills that could be used to construct the monastery.

“Interestingly enough some of the German immigrants were quarry men and knew how to form and lay stone,” Assenmacher said. “They were hired to do the work and the monks helped. Without those craftsmen I don’t know what they would have done.”

Work on the structure began in 1898. While the monastery was under construction, the building at the original site burned, forcing the monks to live in chicken houses and barns until the new building was habitable. A fire almostdestroyed the new sandstone monastery in 1927, leaving the interior gutted. The structure was eventually restored and over the years other buildings were added.

Assenmacher said writings by the early monks indicate that times were tough for the immigrant families and the Benedictines. Some became discouraged and left. They mentioned the heat and theabundance of rattlesnakes, as well as the food, which was different from what the Swiss monks were used to eating. Sometimes it was cornbread three times a day and lots of bacon, so they began planting wheat and other crops.

“There were some bad years when it was dry and all their gardens and crops died, so they were down to eating hand to mouth,” he said. “Nobody starved but they wrote that they didn’t have any potatoes or any vegetables.”

Gradually the community began to grow. The abbey in Switzerland sent recruits each year and eventually more Americans began joining the monastery as well.

Assenmacher said most Benedictine monasteries were started in rural areas and the monks supported themselves by farming. The same was true at Subiaco.

“Then they would jump on horses and go to the German settlements and minister to them and start little churches,” he said.

Today, in addition to the academy, the monks are active in many ways.

A few serve as parish priests in area communities. Others work on the abbey’sBlack Angus cattle farm, in the vineyards and gardens or at the sawmill and carpenter shop. The abbey also has a health-care center to serve ill and aging monks. They also make and sell peanut brittle and hot sauce, which they sell through their website, along with other goods. Then there are the chores of daily life.

But the center of life at the monastery revolves around worship and prayer. Kodell said that is what draws men to the community. The bonus is that the monastery offers so many opportunities, he said.

“Another thing that is attractive to several of the men who have come here is there is such a variety of things going on,” Kodell said. “It’s not just a farm or a retreat program. There are all kinds of things to do.”

Kodell said the newcomers have been an encouragement to the community.

“We consider it as an answered prayer and we think some of our monks who have died are working for us up in heaven,” he said.

The fundraising campaign will continue through March. Information about Subiaco Abbey is available online at countrymonks.us

Religion, Pages 12 on 06/22/2013

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