Scandal at the Abbey: Benedictines set model for healing scars of abuse - Church In Crisis - First in a two-part series - St. John's Abbey in Minnesota

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 13, 2002 by Patricia Lefevere

First in a two-part series

Its reputation for learning and liturgy, publishing and holiness, ecumenism and even bread-making are legendary and have grown over its 146-year existence, making St. John's Abbey here--with its impressive abbey church and signature bell tower--a jewel in the Minnesota prairie landscape.

But the jewel has been tarnished with the disclosure in recent months of a history of sex abuse by a handful of monks, much of it perpetrated 20 to 40 years ago and hidden by the leadership. The revelations have shocked and saddened members of the Benedictine family and thousands of alumni of St. John's University, its prestigious St. John's Prep School and its sister campus--the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.

For six months, headlines and television cameras have highlighted ugly aspects of the history of St. John's Abbey, home to 196 monks, the largest Benedictine men's community in the Western world. The revelations and their aftermath have demonstrated the resolve of Abbot John Klassen to set the abbey's house in order, to punish perpetrators, apologize to and compensate victims, take personal accountability and design steps to assure that such abuses are not repeated. The abbey has won praise for its belated openness and Klassen for his courage and integrity in handling the painful sins of the past.

On April 15, Klassen called a mandatory meeting of all monks at which he disclosed that former Abbot John Eidenschink had sexually abused a monk during his tenure as head of the Benedictine community (1971-79) and another at an earlier date. The news "rocked" the chapter, Br. Paul-Vincent Niebauer told NCR. "It is messy, cruddy stuff and it had happened in our house," said the associate dean of students at St. John's Prep.

Many monks had not only served under Eidenschink's leadership, but had studied canon law and liturgy in his classroom over a quarter century. For some, he was novice master.

Because Klassen had been part of the monastery staff for a decade before being named abbot in 2000, he knew of two allegations of sexual abuse against the former abbot, he told NCR during a lengthy interview in his office in September.

When Klassen confronted Eidenschink, now 88 and living "on restriction" the past 10 years--most recently in the monks' retirement center, St. Raphael's Hall--the former abbot admitted the abuse. Both men were nearly in tears, Klassen recalled.

The pain Klassen is feeling, the pain he has found in the faces of his monks only reminds him "of the deeper pain I have seen in survivors of sexual abuse," he said in a recent statement announcing the abbey's settlement of a number of abuse allegations brought against several of its monks.

Monks on restriction

"It is a pain that strengthens my resolve to reach out to assist survivors wherever they are in their process of healing," Klassen told a news conference Oct. 1, at which the abbey announced the terms of the settlement. The pain he has witnessed has also bolstered his determination "to achieve healing within my own monastic community."

Nine of at least 11 abuser monks have been placed on restriction at the abbey; two have left to discern whether they still have a vocation to Benedictine life. At least two more monks are also living on restriction for sexual infractions related to pornography on the Internet or other sexual misconduct not involving another individual.

A monk placed on restriction cannot say Mass in public. He may not preach, teach or mix with students or staff in either the university or high school. He cannot use the athletic facilities, swimming pool or cafeteria, but may use the library and walk the roads and byways around the monks' 2,500-acre property and lakefront.

Allegations this year against two retired monks, Frs. Cosmas Dahlheimer, 93, and Richard Eckroth, 76, who are both living on restriction in the retirement home, prompted Klassen to go public and for the first time acknowledge that members of the abbey have committed sexual abuse.

Dahlheimer, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, has never admitted wrongdoing, but Klassen told NCR there was "compelling evidence corroborating" his abuse of two children in the 1970s. Eckroth, who took scores of area youngsters to a St. John's-owned cabin near Bemidji, Minn., between 1971 and 1976 and allegedly molested a number of them there, has denied the accusations.

The alleged victims, now in their 30s and 40s have described sexually charged weekend trips during which Eckroth talked of nakedness and of the cabin's sauna while driving five or six boys and girls to the remote log cabin on Lake Swensen. The accusers have testified to being tricked or coerced into going naked in the sauna and in the lake.

Victims have described being fondled, assaulted, raped and sodomized by Eckroth as well as receiving death threats from him. Two of Eckroth's weekend guests in 1972, Mary and Susanne Reker of St. Cloud, Minn., were stabbed to death in 1974. Their bodies were dragged to a quarry.