100 Years

 

The 90s & 00s: The Expansion of Catholic Ministry at Yale

Golden Center OpeningSTM celebrates one-hundred years of Catholic chaplaincy at Yale University . This celebration includes a series of archival exhibits in Riggs Study throughout the year, focusing on STM's one-hundred years of Catholic ministry throughout the decades. Exhibits will be paired with a blog each month. Be sure to read along and come visit Riggs Study throughout the school year!

Father David J. Baranowski was appointed as the sixth Catholic Chaplain at Yale in 1992. During Fr. Baranowski’s tenure, students continued to enjoy many of the programming and practices Fr. Russell put into place in the 1970s and 1980s, including a fall opening picnic in the Residence garden. Students also participated in service outreach projects like the Wednesday Soup Kitchen and the Katherine Brennan Friendship Program, a mentoring program that connected Yale students with fourth and fifth graders from Katherine Brennan Elementary School in New Haven. Alumna Marie Colbert ꞌ95 was a mentor in this program and she fondly remembers the time she spent with her mentee—they would often play cards in Marie’s dorm room, go to New Haven’s museums or go to brunch in the Dining Hall of Marie’s college. Her mentee even came to her graduation.

Students also grew in their faith through yearly retreats, Bible study and spiritual direction/counseling by the Chaplaincy staff. Father Baranowski left in the spring of 1994 and Father Robert Beloin followed him as Yale’s seventh Catholic Chaplain in 1994.

Affectionately known as “Fr. Bob,” he was the longest appointed Catholic Chaplain at Yale with a tenure that lasted nearly twenty-five years. During the rest of the 90s and the first few decades of the 00s, Catholic life at Yale expanded intellectually and physically. A series of named lectures began in the 2000s, including The Judge Guido Calabresi Fellowship in Religion & Law, The Mary Field and Vincent DeP. Goubeau Lecture on Women’s Contribution to Church and Society and The Thomas E. Golden, Jr. Fellowship in Faith & Science. In 2003, STM hosted a conference for Governance, Accountability and the Future of the Church. The conference brought together historians, social scientists, theologians, journalists and foundation executives to examine the then recent sex abuse crisis in the Church and begin to strengthen and heal through a deeper examination of Church governance, leadership and the roles of the laity and clergy. Bloomsbury Academic later published the conference’s proceedings in 2004.

The beginning of Fr. Bob’s tenure also encompassed the fundraising for, and the building of, the Thomas E. Golden, Jr. Center. Designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli to be a place of open welcome to Catholic students and the wider community, construction began in 2004. Petra Construction Corporation oversaw the building and the carpentry work of the 30,000 sq. ft. building, whose interior is entirely outfitted with bookmatched white oak panels. The center is named after Thomas E. Golden, Jr. 51 B.E. 52 M.Eng. , who Fr. Bob and then Development Director Kerry Robinson met in 1998 at a day-long symposium held by STM entitled Catholic Faith and the Intellectual Life at the Threshold of the 21st Century. This began a thirteen-year-long friendship before Tom’s passing on October 29, 2011. As Kerry relates in her book, Imagining Abundance, Tom felt like Fr. Bob and Kerry were family to him and pledged 75% of his estate or 25 million, whichever was greater, to STM when he died. Tom’s gift helped to insure the building of the Golden Center.

In 2006, the Golden Center opened to students and the wider Yale and New Haven community. Guido Calabresi ꞌ53 ꞌ58 LL.B., Peter Alegi ꞌ56 ꞌ59 LL.B. and John Wilkinson '60 '63 MAT '79 MAH oversaw the Golden Center's ribbon cutting ceremony.  All three gentlemen were integral to the Golden Center project and at that time were on STM's Board of Trustees.

In 2008, ESTEEM (Engaging Students to Enliven the Ecclesial Mission) began. STM partnered with Leadership Roundtable to create a program that empowered and trained young adults to step into roles of leadership in their parishes. It is now the primary leadership formation program for young adult Catholics at over a dozen college and university campuses across the United States and the Caribbean.

In 2010, the Chapel was renovated by George Knight M.Arch. ꞌ95, architect and STM community member. Some of these renovations included the re-hanging of the chandeliers, hand blown by John Melville Bee and original to the Chapel. Knight also created a full-immersion baptismal font for the Chapel. This replaced the 1990s pre-Triduum ritual of Catholic members of the Yale football team bringing in a “kiddie pool” so that the elect could be baptized during Easter Vigil.

Like Fr. Russell before him, Fr. Bob received the Yale Medal from the Association of Yale Alumni in 2011.

The first two decades of the 00s also included an expansion of STM’s staff. Where once there was only a Chaplain and perhaps an administrative assistant and an Assistant Chaplain, now there was a department of Assistant Chaplains ready to serve the diverse theological and cultural needs of Yale’s Catholic undergraduates and graduates, as well as an administrative staff that could sustain the daily needs of running the Golden Center. Yale Catholic students, who had been a minority when Fr. T. Lawrason Riggs graduated in 1910, now made up 25% of Yale’s student body in the 2010s.

Fr. Bob was diagnosed with glioblastoma January of 2018. Throughout his illness, the STM community provided him with home-cooked meals every evening and sent him over 800 cards. As Pat Ryan-Krause remembers, she sent him a card every week and her son, David, often made Fr. Bob a salmon chowder. David now calls this his “Fr. Bob chowder.”

Fr. Bob died on September 23, 2018. He is buried in Riggs Garden near STM’s first Chaplain, Fr. T. Lawrason Riggs ꞌ10. As Jill Martin ꞌ90 M.A. wrote in the article “The Riggs Garden: The Space in Between” for the Spring 2019 issue of STM Magazine, both Chaplains are at rest in between two sacred spaces—the Chapel and the Golden Center. Both men are surrounded by what they, and those who worked with them, created on Yale’s campus. Ensconced by structures built at the beginning of the 20th century as well as the beginning of the 21st century, they continue to watch over—and bless—Catholic life and Catholic chaplaincy at Yale.

 

You can learn more about Fr. Baranowski from the QR code under his portrait in the Riggs Study or by viewing it online.

You can also learn more about Fr. Beloin from the QR under his portrait in the Riggs Study or by viewing it online. 

 

Works Referenced:

Marie Colbert. Oral History. February 20, 2023.

Martin, Jill. “The Riggs Garden: The Space in Between.” STM Magazine: Spring 2019.

First-hand accounts from Brian Davies, George Knight and Pat Ryan-Krause.

Robinson, Kerry Alys. Imagining Abundance: Fundraising, Philanthropy, and a Spiritual Call to Service.

Yale Daily News. September 11, 2018. “Facing brain cancer, beloved Yale chaplain reflects on tenure.”

Sarah Woodford '10 M.Div.

Sarah Woodford '10 M.Div.

Sarah is the Director of The Vincent Library at STM.