History
The Saint Benedict Education Foundation was formed in the United States and is currently based in Conception, Missouri. The foundation was created to provide support to one of the best-kept secrets in Rome, the international Benedictine University. Sant’ Anselmo in Rome continues, as it has for many years, to educate both lay and religious students ministering throughout the world in Christ’s name.
From the thirteenth century onwards most Benedictine monasteries were grouped into congregations. Pope Innocent XI instituted the first College of Saint Anselm (or Sant’ Anselmo) for the Cassinese (Italian) Benedictine Congregation in 1687. Originally located at Saint Paul Outside the Walls, during the Napoleonic era this school was suppressed and in 1887 Pope Leo XIII founded the international Benedictine College of Sant’ Anselmo. This re-foundation was intended to offer a solid academic formation for young monks from the worldwide Benedictine Confederation, which the Pope created at almost the same time, grouping together the various Benedictine congregations. The Pope also hoped that the monks educated at Sant’ Anselmo would help to form a bridge with the Eastern Churches, which also had a long monastic tradition.
Over the years Sant’ Anselmo grew from being a general house of studies for Benedictines to include other religious communities as well as diocesan students. Eventually, Sant’ Anselmo was put on a par with the other pontifical Roman colleges. In 1914, Pope Pius X confirmed the right of the college to confer degrees doctorate included in philosophy, theology and canon law.
Pope Leo’s choice of a patron saint for this new international college was itself symbolic of the whole educational adventure. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was a Benedictine monk and a Doctor of the Church. Saint Anselm unites both the monastic tradition and a zeal for learning at the heart of the Church. He wrote, credo ut intelligam, “I believe so that I may understand.” Such an inspiration can also unfold into: “I seek to understand so that I may ever more deeply believe.”
Under the influence of master teachers over the decades, Sant’ Anselmo developed a reputation for a style of theology in which love of learning and desire for God grow together. Monastic culture with its celebration of the Liturgy and its practice of lectio divina sets the tone for both teaching and studying. This, then, becomes a monastic gift, not only for monks and nuns, but to the wider theological dialogue. It becomes a gift hidden in the heart of the Church of Rome.
Although Rome is a modern city, known as a center for fashion, film, printing, banking, and insurance, reminders of Rome’s history are everywhere, archaeology and architecture both old and ancient on its seven hills. On top of an outlying hill east of the river and southeast of Vatican City is the Aventine Hill in the ancient part of Rome. Once a strategic point in controlling trade on the Tiber River, the Aventine is now home to Sant’ Anselmo, the seat of the Benedictine Confederation, and the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant’ Anselmo.
Founded in 1887, students including Benedictine men and women come from all corners of the world to study at Sant’ Anselmo, receiving degrees at both the baccalaureate level and the graduate level. As an educational center, Rome houses many of the pontifical schools and faculties of the church, and opportunities for students to learn in a setting at the heart of the Catholic Church.
Sant’ Anselmo, while an ocean away from the United States, has had a major impact on the Catholic Church, educating cardinals, archbishops and bishops, from Cardinal Paul Augustin Mayer to Archbishop Wilton Gregory to Bishop J. Peter Sartain, Bishop of the Diocese of Seattle by Pope Benedict XVI.
