Just over a century ago, 5,000 people gathered on the present-day site of Helena’s beautiful Cathedral. On that rainy afternoon, Bishop John Patrick Carroll dedicated the cornerstone flanked by seven visiting prelates, his own diocesan clergy, and civic officials and lay representatives from parishes across the state. To add to the solemnity of the occasion, Bishop Carroll read a cablegram from the Holy Father, Pope Pius X, and a congratulatory letter from President Theodore Roosevelt.

Earlier that day, parishioners from across Montana poured out of specially chartered railroad cars in a show of support for this vastly expensive diocesan undertaking. The editorial board of Butte’s Montana Standard characterized this day of dedication as “a time of jubilee, not just for the Catholic community, but also for all people of goodwill.” The ebullient Bishop Carroll echoed the sentiments of the Butte newspaper, saying, “This is their church as much as that of Catholics, and I love them as much as I love those of my own Church.”

During the autumn and winter months, the Helena community watched the Cathedral take shape, beginning with the massive foundation of stone hauled from the Kain Quarries in Colorado Gulch. Upon this foundation, 30,000 cubic feet of Indiana Bedford Limestone was cut, carved and numbered and set in accord with the detailed plans devised by famed architect A. O. Von Herbulis.

By May of 1909, exactly 100 years ago this month, the north, south and east walls of the new Cathedral rose 12 feet above the water table and by the 4th of July, the four limestone walls were ready for roofing.

What is little known about those seminal days of our Cathedral Church is the fact that in the spring of ’08, Bishop Carroll introduced an eleventh hour and radical change in the architectural design of Saint Helena Cathedral.

He ordered that the floor plan of his new Cathedral be reduced by a full one-third. He did so with an express and ingenious purpose in mind. He truncated the Cathedral so that his dream of a college to serve the people of the Diocese of Helena could also be realized.

In correspondence to the general contractor, Bishop Carroll wrote, “Be prepared to contemplate the building of a cathedral of two-thirds the size of that contemplated by the plans and specifications already prepared.” To that end, the Bishop re-directed a total of $275,000 from Cathedral coffers to secure land, architectural designs and materials for Mount St. Charles, the future Carroll College. He did so at a time when the nation was still reeling from a short-lived but serious recession, a plunge in the stock market, endemic unemployment, rampant inflation, and serious distrust in the nation’s savings institutions.

In the spring of ’09, in consultation with Architect A.O. Von Herbulis, the Bishop unveiled plans for a five-story building situated on the crest of Helena’s Capitol Hill. He envisioned the college as Newman described, a “rus in urbe,” the country in the city, on a site visible from any point in the surrounding countryside, constructed of cement and steel, with an exterior of red porphyry stone and granite.

Archival records indicate that construction began on June 16, 1909, “and by late September enough progress had been made that the official cornerstone of the building could be set into place.”

Bishop Carroll was himself an educator and intellectual. He envisioned a college that could provide for the formation of an indigenous clergy and the liberal education of the young men in Montana for whom education could serve as a passport from poverty and a portal to opportunity. In the words of the Bishop himself, “The aim of the new college will be to give young men in Montana a thorough liberal education which will fit them for leadership in any vocation they choose, and at the same time permeate them with a religious atmosphere (so) that they will ever follow conscience as their king.”

The legacy we have received from this visionary man is coupled with an immense moral responsibility to build and rebuild both Church and society upon the foundational values Bishop Carroll set in place so long ago.

As a scholar immersed in the Catholic intellectual tradition, Bishop Carroll would be proud of the ways his college has continued to live out its commitment to academic excellence. He would praise the outstanding faculty and staff that has been assembled in this place of learning – women and men who are true scholars and experts in their field of learning, who serve our students well beyond the call of duty. He would thank them for equipping our students to meet the challenges of the modern world through rigorous study, critical thinking and a commitment to life-long learning.

Bishop Carroll would applaud our commitment to the pastoral care of our students, reflected in beautiful liturgy, spiritual formation and an investment in service learning. Bishop Carroll’s own motto “in sanctitate et justitia,” holiness and justice, anticipates the full flowering of Catholic Social Teaching as we know it today, and compels the College to make meaningful connections between worship and service, prayer and compassion, love of God and love of neighbor. We have done so well.

So too, Bishop Carroll would also be gratified to learn of the number of women and men considering vocations to priesthood and religious life, part of the founding vision of Mount Saint Charles.

So too he would glow with pride upon seeing the Saints, in their respective world of sports and speech, excel under the guidance of superior mentor-coaches, who skillfully meld excellence with virtue in hearts of their winning teams.So too, the Bishop would undoubtedly embrace the college’s desire to engage in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue as a sine qua non for Catholic higher education, echoing Pope Benedict’s prophetic counsel that there will be no peace among the nations until there is peace among the great religions of the world.

Finally, he would applaud the school’s practical commitment to its motto—non scholae, sed vitae, first articulated by Seneca, and consistent with the Church’s vision of servant leadership, to send our graduates forth “to transform Church and society in the light of the Gospel.”

Our present day College, named for the visionary Bishop Carroll, stands on a firm foundation far stronger, more durable than any quarry stone, porphyry or granite. The true foundation stones to which I refer are the “living stones” described in the Gospel – disciples of Jesus Christ, with Him as the “keystone” of all we are and all we do.

For ten decades these “living stones” have served as a solid foundation for both Church and society, as priests and religious, physicians and nurses, engineers and teachers, artists, actors, attorneys – all, without exception, beneficiaries of Bishop Carroll’s dream.

As we enter into the second century as graduates, benefactors and devotees of Carroll College, we do so aware of its unique history and legacy, humbled that we are part of that great Bishop’s dream.

Bishop Carroll, thank you for your vision and spirit, a spirit we can feel this night as we move into our next century of service with confidence and hope. Congratulations to Carroll College, the school we know and love.

Let the Jubilee Year begin!


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 25, No. 5, May 15, 2009.