O Roma Nobilis...: Memoirs of Studying Theology in Pre-Vatican Ii Rome

By Jeremiah Reedy S.T.B. M.A. Ph.D.

I have received so many blessings in my life (the gift of faith, a long life, good health, an excellent education, many opportunities to serve others, two happy marriages with two outstanding wives, wonderful children and grandchildren, a successful career, prosperity, inspiring friends, opportunities to travel, and too many other gifts to list) that I thought I should celebrate them and share them with others in this book as I have done to a lesser extent in an earlier memoir entitled Close Calls, the Worlds First Unauthorized Autobiography. Reviewing my life I see the hand of God in everything that has happened to me and that I have done.

Most important of all studying in Rome enhanced my love of the Church and my desire to stay close to it and follow its teachings and rules. The recent shocking increase in violence and unheard of forms of cruelty in the world have me praying many times each day.

The title O Roma Nobilis comes from two lines of a hymn which is sung on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29). They read O Roma nobilis, quae duorum principum es consecrata glorioso sanguine. O noble Rome, you have been consecrated with the glorious blood of two princes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503563735

Jeremiah Reedy S.T.B. M.A. Ph.D.

Jeremiah Reedy, a native of South Dakota, earned an S.T.B. degree at the Gregorian University in Rome, an M.A. in Classics from the University of South Dakota, another M.A. and a Ph.D. in Classical Studies from the University of Michigan, where he specialized in classical philology and Indo-European linguistics. He taught Classics at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1968 until he retired in 2004. For the past 25 years, most of his time and energy has been devoted to studying and writing about Greek philosophy. Besides essays on philosophy, his publications include translations and editions of both ancient Greek and medieval Latin works.. An activist in efforts to reform education, Dr. Reedy was the chair of the founding committee of the New Spirit School in St. Paul and the founder of the Seven Hills Classical Academy in Bloomington, Minnesota.

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O Roma Nobilis…

Memoirs of Studying Theology in pre-Vatican II Rome

Jeremiah Reedy, S.T.B.,

M.A., Ph.D.

Copyright © 2015 by Jeremiah Reedy, S.T.B., M.A., Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/30/2015

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter One: How I Got to Rome

Chapter Two: The North American College

A Brief History

Staff of North American College

Life at NAC

Chapter Three: The Gregorian University

History

Faculty

Chapter Four: Returning Home

Chapter Five: Epilogue

Marriage, Wives, and Children

Chapter Six: Bag Contributions

Appendix I   Obituaries

Appendix II Lonergan Organizations

Endnotes

Dedicated

to

my parents

Alice G.

and

John E. Reedy

What is there to love

that I have not loved?

Wallace Stevens

PREFACE

What a pleasure it is, as one thinks of the end of this life and the beginning of eternal life, to be able to glance in the rear view mirror and see a life full of blessings, unexpected and undeserved gifts, and an abundance of opportunities to serve others. Among the blessings I see the gift of faith, a long life, good health, an excellent education, two happy marriages with two outstanding wives, wonderful children and grandchildren, a successful career, unexpected prosperity, inspiring and loyal friends, opportunities to travel, and too many other gifts to list. Hence the thought occurred to me that I should celebrate these blessings and share them with others in this book as I have done to a lesser extent in an earlier memoir entitled Close Calls, the World’s First Unauthorized Autobiography. Reviewing my life I see the hand of God in everything that has happened to me and that I have done.

Two years at the North American College (NAC hereafter) and the Gregorian University (the Greg) had a profound and lasting influence on my life. They gave me a love of the Church, of Latin and of Italian that is with me to this day. My Roman sojourn also stimulated my interest in philosophy, theology, history, Italian literature, archeology, architecture, art, and opera. No doubt my fondness for the early morning and the practice of rising at 5:00 a.m., my taking a siesta, and leading a scheduled life in an attempt to avoid wasting time derive from those days in Rome. Even the practice of diverting ourselves during long, cold Minnesota winters by planning a summer trip has stayed with me. Summer trips in the case of my wife, Mary Ann, and me have meant trips to the Holy Land, Egypt, South Africa, China, and all the countries of Western Europe including twenty-five trips to Greece to attend meetings of the International Association for Greek Philosophy.

Most important of all studying in Rome enhanced my love of the Church and my desire to stay close to it and follow its teachings and rules. The recent shocking increase in violence and unheard of forms of cruelty in the world have me praying many times each day.

I wish to thank Msgr. James Checchio for permission to use photos from the ’56, ’57, and ’58 issues of Roman Echoes. I received permission from the Gregorian University to use photos from the 1958 issue of Orbis in Urbe for which I am very grateful. I also wish to express my gratitude to Msgr. Stephen M. DiGiovanni, author of The Second Founder, Bishop Martin J. O’Connor and the Pontifical North American College, who helped me with a number of questions and to Ken Trainor, author of Unfinished Pentecost, Vatican II and the Altered Lives of Those Who Witnessed It, who gave me the idea of inviting classmates to contribute memoirs. Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, an author and writing instructor, read most of the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. I am indebted to Peter Kearney who is a proofreader extraodinaire for catching many errors that would have marred the text had he not caught them. My wife, Mary Ann, made many valuable suggestions and encouraged me when things weren’t going well. Finally I want to thank all the bags who contributed memoirs that have added so much to this volume. I only wish I had thought of this project ten years ago when more of them were alive and I was less chronologically challenged.

The title O Roma Nobilis… comes from two lines of a hymn which is sung on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29). They read O Roma nobilis, quae duorum principum es consecrata glorioso sanguine. "O noble Rome, you have been consecrated with the glorious blood of two princes."

This book is dedicated to my parents, Alice G. and John E. Reedy, who put up with me, in the case of my Mother for 67 years and of my Father for 79 years. Requiescant in pace.

[I have adopted a practice used by Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni in The Second Founder, Bishop Martin J. O’Connor and the Pontifical North American College: the first time I mention Bishop O’Connor, Cardinal Spellman, et al., I use their titles; after that I often refer to them with their last names only.]

CHAPTER ONE

How I Got to Rome

While I was in junior high our parish received a new pastor, Hugh K. Wolf. Fr. Wolf was born in 1902 with two serious deformities–he had a pidgen chest and a hunchback. Since these terms are no longer politically correct, I will give the medical terms, pectus carinatum and kyphoscoliosis. Fr. Wolf was five feet tall at the most. While he was studying for the priesthood at Christ the King Seminary which was associated with St. Bonaventure University located south of Buffalo, N. Y., he had been told he probably would not live to be ordained. He surprised everyone and was ordained in 1927 for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which seems rather strange, but perhaps South Dakota was considered missionary territory, and he wanted to be a missionary.

One might say that Fr. Wolf was fond of controversy. He was the self-appointed defensor fidei for south eastern South Dakota. If, for instance, a University of South Dakota student reported that such and such a university faculty member had made disparaging remarks about the Catholic Church in a class, Fr. Wolf would be in his or her office the next day demanding an explanation and an apology. His approach was very confrontational with local Protestant ministers also. He also liked to attend meetings of the City Council and challenge members on any subject that was in any way related to religion or morality. For example, there was a law that said no bars could be located close (one mile?) to the University campus. Fr. Wolf argued that this just forced students to get in their cars and drive to a bar, and this law, therefore, contributed to driving while intoxicated.

It would be easy to psychoanalyze this behavior as compensation for his lack of physical stature. My point here, however, is that Fr. Wolf was a good priest who was full of missionary zeal. This zeal was also evident in recruiting boys for the seminary and young women for the convent. He was especially interested in me and my best friend, Pat Merrigan. In hindsight I can see why he thought I was a likely candidate. For one thing school was easy for me, and I got excellent grades without exerting much effort. Secondly my family was hard up. The Reedys of my grandfather’s generation were prominent and prosperous. They included a governor who became a two-term U.S. Senator and a farmer-auctioneer-businessman who was one of the wealthiest persons in the state. (He owned 1600 acres at a time when most farmers had forty!) My father, on the other hand, was wiped out by the depression of 1929, was frequently unemployed when I was in grade school with the result that my Mother who taught in country schools was often the sole support of the family.

It was probably when I was a sophomore that Fr. Wolf began telling me that he could speak to the bishop about my attending the seminary and it wouldn’t cost my family anything. Although we lived across the street from the University of South Dakota campus, my parents had never mentioned the possibility that I or my siblings might go to the university. This was all the stranger because both my Mother and my Father had university degrees! I mentioned that Fr. Wolf must have been talking to me about the seminary when I was a sophomore and junior because in my senior year I took elementary Latin, obviously with seminary in mind. (Everyone else in the class was a freshman.) To show what a reprobate I was even then, while taking Latin in case I decided to go the sem, the girl who sat next to me became my girlfriend, and I took her out several times including to the junior-senior prom! I graduated from high school with no plans for the following fall. All I had was a summer job as a bell boy at the State Game Lodge, a resort in the Black Hills, and it was while I was working there that Fr. Wolf phoned me and told me the Bishop would send me to St. John’s at Collegeville, Minnesota if I wanted to try the seminary. Having nothing else in mind and having nothing to lose, I decided to try it.

I loved everything about St. John’s, including the structured way of life, the Benedictines, the campus with its two lakes, and my classmates, although I must confess that the winters were very cold. I took intermediate Latin, elementary Greek, freshman English, history of Western Civilization, etc. I remember being discouraged about Greek at one point, so I visited the instructor, Fr. Cosmas, who told me I could drop the class if I wanted to, but I would have an F on my record. Rather than that, I decided to make the best of it, and I began studying harder. I subsequently fell in love with Greek and am still working with it!

I spent my sophomore year living at home and attending the University of South Dakota, but I continued to study Latin and Greek, and I began studying philosophy. When the time came to begin what I suppose could be called the major seminary, Fr. Wolf recommended his alma mater, St. Bonaventure. Normally I would have gone to what is now called the School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, but it seems I wanted to get far away from home.

During Christmas vacation in 1955, home from St. Bonaventure’s, I met with Fr. Wolf in his office at the rectory. I can’t remember if it was his idea or mine, but Rome and the possibility of studying there came up. I had done well at St. Bonaventure’s and before that at St. John’s, getting mostly A’s. Much to my surprise Fr. Wolf picked up the telephone and called Bishop Brady in Sioux Falls using a special, private number. They chatted briefly regarding my studying in Rome and that was it. The bishop would send me in the fall of 1956 to the North American College (NAC hereafter). I’m not sure if I told my folks then or later; most likely I couldn’t keep the news to myself.

Back at Bonaventure’s after vacation my going to Rome caused quite a sensation. Every spring a couple of students from Buffalo would be informed that they were being sent to Rome in the fall, but this was January and I was teased for a whole semester about being an apprentice to the Pope, eventually becoming a bishop, etc.

Before setting off for New York in the fall of 1956 my family had a Last Supper at the farm of my sister Donna and her husband Bud. I was leaving for four years so it was very sad, especially for Mom whom I had only seen cry once or twice before. Only years later when I had my own kids did I realize what she was experiencing and would experience. The following morning Donna and Bud drove me to Minneapolis where I stayed with a friend from Vermillion High School, Jack Donahoe, who showed me around the Twin Cities. Next day I left by train for New York City. During the summer of 1956 I had learned that a friend from St. John’s, Gerry Sande, a native of North Dakota, was headed for Rome also. We met in New York City where my aunt Mamie and cousin Eileen from D.C. and a friend from St. Bonaventure, Jim Lafferty, had also come to see me off. Gerry and I sailed on the Maasdam for Southampton, England. (Everybody in those days crossed the Atlantic by ship; jets were just becoming available. A couple of years later, when students at the North American College began chartering jet planes to bring their families to Rome for ordination, it was an exciting innovation.)

In London Gerry and I stayed with Mrs. Lynch who ran a pension which was a favorite with students from the North American College. (Gerry had received a list of pensions and small hotels from a friend at the North American College.) Mrs. Lynch and her husband entertained us by taking us to the local pub where we met their neighbors who teased us about celibacy, wearing hair shirts, etc. The following are excerpts from a diary I kept while in London:

Wed. Sept. 26 Today was our first full day in London. We went to Oklahoma in the afternoon, and we just returned from a ballet at Covent Gardens.

Thurs. Sept. 27 Today we saw Shakespeare’s country–Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, Ann Hathaway’s cottage, the church where Shakespeare was baptized, and Queen’s College at Oxford. All is going well although I feel that I am spending too much money.

Fri. Sept. 28 Enjoyed Solid Gold Cadillac very much. We went to it after another day of sightseeing–Westminster Abbey, The National Gallery (Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Van Dyke and many others.)

Sat. Sept. 29 Really tired. Saw National History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Hyde Park where we listened to a young Methodist minister preach, and a few other sites. After a very good dinner (Vienna steak and chips) we went to Romanoff and Juliet which Peter Ustinov both wrote and acted in.

Sun. Sept. 30 Wrote letters and then visited the Tower, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and some sites recommended by Mr. Lynch, our landlord.

Mon. Oct. 1 Really tired after playing cards with Mr. and Mrs. Lynch until 3:45 a.m. Getting ready for the flight to Rome.

I remember how thrilled I was to see St. Peter’s, the Forum, the Colosseum and other famous Roman sites from the air.

roof%20of%20nac.jpg

The author on the roof of NAC

st.%20peter%27s%20basilica.jpg

St. Peter’s Basilica

CHAPTER TWO

The North American College

A Brief History

In 1854 Cardinal Wiseman of Westminster proposed the idea of a pontifical college in Rome for training American diocesan clergy, which won the approval of Pope Pius IX. Also in 1854, the Holy Father sent Archbishop Gaetano Bedini as a papal legate to the United States. Bedini came back with two recommendations (1) that a formal nuncio be sent to the United States and (2) that an American college be founded in Rome. Persuaded by the pope’s concern and prodded by the enthusiasm of Bedini who was now Secretary of the Propagation of the Faith, the American bishops of a youthful country sent two priests to Rome in 1856 to study the situation, resulting in Pittsburgh’s Bishop O’Connor’s trip the following year to finalize arrangements. The Congregation of the Propaganda purchased the property in Rome on Humility Street on September 22, 1858. The house was first a Dominican convent, built in 1598 by Donna Francesca Orsini, who chose the name of Our Lady of Humility