Schools for the Lord's Service

An inspiring narrative history of the oldest congregation of Benedictine monasteries in the United States.

Commissioned by the American-Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, Schools for the Lord’s Service is a comprehensive narrative history of the oldest congregation of Benedictine monasteries in the United States. In vivid detail, it describes how monasteries of the American-Cassinese Congregation initiated monastic life in North America according to the Rule of St. Benedict and how, in doing so, they have engaged for nearly 170 years with the American Catholic Church, the global Benedictine Order, the Holy See, and American society.

Following a Benedictine tradition that stretches back to the early Middle Ages, American-Cassinese monks spread out from Pennsylvania to establish monasteries throughout the United States. Led by Boniface Wimmer, a visionary monk from the Bavarian abbey of Metten, the Benedictines introduced monastic observance according to the Rule of St. Benedict in these monasteries, and from them they founded missions, parishes, and schools where they continue to carry on pastoral, educational, and missionary apostolates in the service of the people of God. Comprised of twenty-five monasteries located in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Taiwan, the legacy and spirit of the American-Cassinese Benedictines continues to reinforce and complement the words of Abbot Boniface Wimmer who constantly exhorted his Benedictine brothers and sisters, “Forward, always forward.”

Jerome Oetgen is author of An American Abbot: Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809–1887; Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the First Benedictine Monastery in the United States; and Always Forward: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, 1949–2020. He is also editor of Boniface Wimmer: Letters of an American Abbot. Educated from an early age by the Benedictines, Oetgen is a graduate of St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania and holds an MDiv from St. Vincent Seminary, an MA from the University of North Carolina, and a PhD from the University of Toronto. A retired senior foreign service officer, he served at United States embassies in Italy, Spain, Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Haiti. He currently resides in Arlington, Virginia.