Benedictine Society nearly dissolved high school

Two years ago, the Benedictine Society of Virginia called in a management adviser to dissolve Benedictine High School, the Catholic military academy that the society operates in Richmond.

The decision came at the request of the Benedictine abbey’s supervisory committee, the American-Cassinese Congregation.

The adviser, Bryan Walsh, said in April 2009 he persuaded the monastic community in Goochland County to hold off on those plans while he set up financial controls. He ended the practice of co-mingling the society’s and the school’s funds, completed three years of financial audits and reviewed its $1.8 million debt, which included $1.5 million for construction of the school’s Goochland playing fields and $300,000 to keep the school afloat during a rough period.

Walsh, with assistance from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, then convinced the congregation that the school could survive, and the congregation gave the abbey a $900,000 loan from its members.

“We stuck our neck out,” said the Rev. Hugh Anderson, president of the congregation. “We think it’s a good operation, we think it’s of value to the area and we want to support that as much as we could.”

The Benedictine Society agreed to continue to operate the school, to develop a long-term plan for its future success and move forward with plans to relocate to the abbey. The loan was repaid to the congregation and rolled into the abbey’s existing debt for school expenses, for a total of $2.7 million. Both the school and the abbey were used as collateral on the loan, Walsh said.

Last month, the society entered an agreement with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to pursue the sale of its North Sheppard Street school building. The academy would be relocated to the society’s Mary Mother of the Church Abbey in Goochland, a move some alumni and parents say will destroy the fabric of the school.

A 2008 estimate for the project was $23 million. Benedictine’s headmaster, Jesse Grapes, said his proposed scaled-down renovation of the former seminary would cost much less but has declined to provide details to parents and alumni.

The Rev. Luke Travers, a New Jersey-based monk who was assigned in June 2010 to supervise the society on behalf of the congregation for a three-year period, said he believes moving the school will help it thrive.

“I don’t know of anything that means more to the monks than the life of the school, other than witnessing to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Travers said.

He said putting the abbey and the school on the same property “returns us to a strength that we had in our past. It’s good for the school and it’s absolutely good for the abbey,” he said.

However, he added, “We’re not moving the school for the sake of the monastery.”

The Benedictine Society will receive 12.5 percent of the total sale price, which has not been disclosed, and will also see all the debts erased.

Travers said those funds will not be enough to operate the monastery and that the abbey will need additional monies. The school is currently paying the abbey rent, but Walsh said rent will not be charged if the school moves to the abbey.

He said the abbey needs an endowment that would help cover the retirement needs for the older monks. Eleven monks, a combination of ordained priests and non-ordained brothers, live at the abbey; four of them are over 75, including the Rev. Adrian Harmening, a chaplain at Benedictine and pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

The monks’ lives are a mixture of work and prayer. They operate a seasonal gift shop, as well as a retreat center at the abbey. Some of them are occasionally called on to serve as priests at parishes and hospitals. None of the current monks work as teachers at the school, which has been a sore spot for some alumni, who grew up with the monks as teachers.

Travers said the abbey has used its own money to keep the school afloat over the last decade.

“The reason the abbey isn’t better off is because they spent the money on the kids,” he said. “That’s how much they care about this place.”

Benedictine Society nearly dissolved high school
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: March 02, 2011
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