On the Square, Nov. 7, 2005

In Tulsa this weekend I spoke at an affair in support of the new Benedictine monastery, Our Lady of the Annunciation, in Clear Creek, Oklahoma. Clear Creek is a little over an hour’s drive from Tulsa, and the monastery is attracting a multitude of vocations—far more than it can accommodate in its present buildings.

The affair was deemed a great success, with more than 500 people turning out for a gala (very un-monastic) dinner and evening of entertainment and edification. There is a remarkable story behind all this, going back to three professors at the University of Kansas who were instrumental in many young men discovering their vocations, including vocations to the monastic life.

Many of them found their way to the Benedictine monastery in Fontgambault in France, which, in turn, is a foundation of the Solesmes monastery. Solesmes, established in the fifteenth century, was the source of the monastic and liturgical renewal of the nineteenth century and had a powerful influence in the revival of, among other things, Gregorian chant. The Americans who went to Fontgambault have now returned to this country under the patronage of the wise and generous Bishop of Tulsa, Edward Slattery.

Mass at Clear Creek is in Latin and according to the 1962 Roman Missal. It is celebrated with a solemnity that is redolent with the numinous, and in sharp contrast to many current liturgical practices. Some view Clear Creek as an exercise in nostalgia, or as a protest against changes initiated after the Second Vatican Council. I suppose that is inevitable. It is more accurate, however, to view Clear Creek as a communal embodiment of an irreplaceable part of the Church’s liturgical heritage, and as a powerful witness to the attractiveness of a way of life that proposes to the Church and the world a more radical form of discipleship. Catholicism in Tulsa, and in America, is the richer for the presence of Our Lady of the Annunciation, Clear Creek, Oklahoma.

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Let's fill in the blanks of Richard John Neuhaus' comment above. It was called the Integrated Humanties Program at KU. The three professors were John Senior, Frank Nelick, and Dennis Quinn. The IHP is legendary, especially in the Midwest. Thousands of college students converted to Catholicism as a result of the program, especially because of John Senior's witness. Eric Brende is one such convert and someone whom I proud to call my friend. I have other friends who were graduates as well. The IHP was so successful that it became a threat to the politically correct administrators at KU that they shut it down. One way that the IHP lives today is through The Angelicum Academy, which is one of the best home schooling academies in the country. Another way is through the above mentioned Benedictine Monks of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek in Oklahoma.