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Inaugural Address
Fr. Robert Koopmann, OSB
October 1, 2009
Saint John’s University
Collegeville MN 56321
Thank you and welcome to all of you. I am honored to have been named the 12th president of Saint John’s University. I thank God for blessing Saint John’s University so abundantly for the past 153 years. At every meeting in the monastery, we begin with the prayer, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.” Today, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.” As Saint John’s moves forward in serving the needs of the ever changing world, let’s remember that our help and our blessings do come from God.
Thank you to my monastic brothers who have supported and encouraged me since I began my novitiate 39 years ago. Thank you to the search committee members, who spent an enormous amount of time during the selection process. Thank you to the faculty and staff of Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict. You have been an inspiration and help to me for the past 34 years. And thank you to the members of the Board of Regents of Saint John’s University, whose enormous dedication and support to Saint John’s has helped make us what we are today, and will move us now to our next step in excellence and service.
Saint John’s has a rich history. The German monks who founded Saint John’s in 1856 came to Minnesota to educate and serve other German immigrants. All of the early students were Catholic and almost all were German. The monastery was forming itself in a new culture. They grew their own food; they made much of their own clothing; they treated the land well; everything was done in the context of community; all the students lived on campus. They valued good art, music, and architecture.
I came to Saint John’s University as a freshman in 1964. My parents and I visited Saint John’s, almost as an afterthought after visiting another Catholic college in the Twin Cities (which will go un-named). We arrived here, probably without an appointment, and met Fr. Don LeMay, who told us that there was a wonderful concert pianist on the faculty, Willem Ibes, and he is a mentor, friend, and colleague to this day. Fr. Don also told us that the Saint John’s University Men’s Chorus toured all over the United States and Europe. It still does, by the way, under Axel Theimer’s able leadership. The warmth of Fr. Don, the beauty of the campus, and the possibilities for great academic study sold me on this school.
I lived in Benet Hall, 3rd floor. I think I was the only student on my floor from out of state, having come all the way from Iowa. My roommate was from Gilbert, MN. There were a few international students at Saint John’s, mostly from the Bahamas. But we were not a diverse group. We were mostly Midwesterners. We received a great education.
From my liberal arts classes at Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s—I learned as much on how to live a good life as from my music classes. I remember my philosophy classes. I was amazed to learn that many people thought about life in a very different way from me. I read that Frederic Nietzsche was convinced that great music profoundly changes listeners and performers. I had never thought of that before, but this statement has influenced my attitude toward music to this day. I remember finding ways to get inside works of literature that I never thought I would even enjoy reading, such as the stories of Flannery O’Connor. Her humorous and profound look at plain old good country people gave me a new way to experience God’s transformative work in human nature. And I found that music moved me in ways that I never thought possible. Traveling to Europe and all over the United States with the Men’s Chorus taught me that many people thought about the world with a perspective that was far different than mine. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Saint John’s.
Looking to the future has always been the tradition of Saint John’s. The motto of Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, who founded Saint John’s, was, “Forward, always forward, ever forward!” Boniface Wimmer also believed that we must not be held back by hard times. He said, “Our adversity is God’s opportunity.”
This address today looks to the future of St. John’s. You have seen the wonderful image we chose for this occasion, taken from The Saint John’s Bible. It is called “Life in Community,” and it depicts the fellowship and unity of Christians in the early church. We need only read the Acts of the Apostles to know that the early Christians fought tooth and nail about how the church should be shaped. But the Holy Spirit of God was with them, as they prayed and argued and discussed. They moved forward, often experiencing beautiful community as we see in the illustration, but not always. Today, we live in a world of conflict, lack of respect for others, an absence of hope for the future, and the tragic consequences of division, discord, and difference. In our monastic community here, we often experience a wonderful life together, but not always. Yet we consistently work together to make our community living better.
Saint John’s is the perfect place to build a future of hope, dialogue, and harmony among all peoples. Every part of Saint John’s community can make a contribution: Saint John’s Abbey; our undergraduate program in coordination with the College of Saint Benedict; our School of Theology-Seminary, which prepares future leaders and scholars for the Church; our Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, which preserves the arts and culture of the past and studies it anew to guide the future; our Saint John’s Bible, which brings artistic and spiritual inspiration to all who witness it; our Saint John’s Preparatory school, which serves middle and high school students in a unique way; our Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, which fosters ideas and dialogue among all religions; the Saint John’s Arboretum, the Saint John’s Boys’ Choir, Saint John’s Pottery, The Liturgical Press, and Abbey Woodworking. All make contributions to the future.
Today, 45 years after I first came to Saint John’s, I live in Saint Francis House, or Frank House, where there are 23 residents who are from Minnesota and Iowa, but also from New York, Poland, Bosnia, and China. We currently have 243 international students enrolled from 47 countries. Look at the display of international flags here today.
The rest of the world has also changed. Catholics in the United States are now only 6% of the 1.1 billion Catholic population of the world. The centers of Catholic populations and often Catholic thinking are moving to places like Nigeria, Indonesia, and Argentina. So we, at Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s, need to dedicate ourselves to building a world community, where differences are acknowledged, and all people are valued from the womb to a natural death.
So what does Saint John’s do in the next decade? Here’s what I think. We start with the best education we can possibly offer: unparalleled mentorship in the humanities, the natural sciences, the fine arts, and the social sciences. We focus on those programs we do very well and strive for excellence in them. We connect into a seamless tapestry what happens in the classrooms, the rehearsal rooms, the labs, the residence halls, on music ensemble tours, in study abroad programs, in campus ministry, in our athletic activities, and in the many initiatives of student development. Our graduates value this Saint John’s mentorship so deeply.
Saint John’s and our partner Saint Benedict’s can provide all of us with multiple ways of examining our world and our lives. The Catholic intellectual tradition is a strong one. It goes back to the early medieval universities. And where did those universities come from? They were founded by Benedictine monasteries! We are the ideal place to study ideas and subjects of deep significance, to learn to live together in peace and harmony, and to be a positive influence to the world around us, which now includes the entire globe.
The many cultures around the world desperately need to understand one another better in order to fight the threats of war, poverty, pandemics, and environmental destruction. As our dear Brother Dietrich said at his inauguration, quoting Frederick Buechner, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
There are vibrant communities of Benedictines throughout the world. A new program at Saint John’s, the Saint John’s Benedictine Volunteer Corps, provides opportunities for our graduates to volunteer in monastic foundations around the globe, in Africa, South America, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Our Johnnie volunteers receive as much or more than they contribute from these programs. The relationships they make in these locations will provide opportunities for dialogue among our students here and people across the globe, especially with the current ease of technology.
The values on which Saint John’s was founded endure: service to the common good, recognition of the identity and needs of all of God’s people; a strong sense of Catholic and Benedictine heritage and values, nourishing of the soul, spirit, and mind, and preparation for a life of mission and vocation. We must move outside our comfort zones to make these values real in the larger world.
We must face issues in human and natural ecology, environmental science, sustainable economic development, and Saint Benedict’s principles of stewardship. We must study the liberal arts which teach imagination, intuition, cooperation, discipline, analytical skills, and the ability to deal with complexity in whatever we are doing - whether that is leading a personnel department in a business, or designing an airplane, or mediating a disagreement between people or groups or countries, or diagnosing a patient’s illness.
The Benedictine practice of contemplation is a primary way to understand ourselves and the world better. It means thinking deeply, pondering what we are studying. We are so used to doing many things—texting, listening to music, and studying—and all at the same time. Slow down, ------practice doing one thing,------just reading,----- just thinking, -----just praying. These 2,700 acres here are sacred ground, as Abbot Timothy Kelly has noted: this land was “holy long before the first monks arrived,” and it is the ideal place for contemplation, deep thinking and sorting out our lives.
We listen with the ear of our hearts, as Saint Benedict instructs us to do. If we know that our own desires and perceived needs are often selfish, we can change our entire way of living for the better. When I led the South Africa study abroad program, our whole group participated in an African drumming class at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. As part of this class, we each had a percussion instrument with a tricky rhythm to play. Individually our parts were not impressive and the music didn’t sound like much. But when our rhythms were played together, it became an amazing, uplifting experience. In order to make that music happen, we had to first listen to others so that we would fit in, all the while working hard to keep playing our own rhythm correctly. In other words, we all had to listen and make our own contribution for the good of the whole—our community. The hymn that we will sing together to conclude this occasion, “In Christ there is No East or West,” describes “one fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth” and “a golden cord close binding all of humankind.”
Br. Dietrich’s parting words were, “the best is yet to come.” I will do my best to lead and inspire the Saint John’s community toward this ideal community which God promises, and for which Saint Benedict gives us a way to move foward.
Therefore, I charge the monks of Saint John’s Abbey to be models of community to all of Saint John’s. Brother monks, look forward to the ways that we can best serve contemporary society, supported daily by our central mission of prayer.
I charge the faculty and staff to point the way for all of our students to the power of rigorous study. Please continue to demonstrate, inspire, and teach our students how to ask the right questions.
I charge the students of Saint John’s to search for truth in all you do; and, when you graduate, carry on our mission for a better global community throughout your whole lives.
I charge our regents, alumni, parents and friends to join us in our mission, to continue to care for us, and to pray for us.
We are headed in the right direction. But I continue to remember the words of Will Rogers: “Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.” The heritage of our founder Archabbot Boniface Wimmer is alive today. His motto, “Forward, always forward, ever forward,” will be my mantra, always in my heart, in my mind, and in my soul. Let us pray that God will bless all of Saint John’s in the years ahead and that we will all do our part in moving this great institution forward, always forward.
Thank you and God bless you.