INSieiiT
by FATHER JOHN P. BRADLEY, PRESIDENT
This year, 1976, we celebrate the Abbey’s Centennial
Year. One hundred years of dedicated service in what
truly must be one of the most unlikely places in the
entire United States for a Catholic institution to be
founded and to manage to endure for half as long as our
Nation! This aspect of the Abbey’s history never fails
to fascinate me and has, of course, particular
relevance during this Centennial Year, especially for
those of us in a position to know the struggle and
sacrifice that has gone into making its continued
existence possible.
While recognizing and admiring the sacrifices and
dedication of many people, Benedictines and others,
that made this possible, it seems to me that the only
adequate explanation of the Abbey’s being able to
celebrate its Centennial is simply because God in His
Providence wants this institution to be here. Founded
in response to the offer of a thousand-acre plantation,
in an area that even one hundred years later has a very
small Catholic population, this institution had to go it
alone. Alone, that is, except for the all-important fact
that in the mysterious design of Divine Providence, the
Abbey had and has a purpose to fulfill here.
For a proper appreciation of what I have said, some
familiarity with the history of the Abbey is needed;
how the ten wonderful Benedictine monks who came
here 100 years ago had to dig up the clay,, make the
bricks with their own hands, and build the buildings
that are now a hundred years old; how their successors
had to work and sacrifice to sustain the institution
those pioneer monks had established. But since I am
not the one to write about the history of the Abbey, that
fascinating subject can only be peripheral to this ar
ticle. The major thrust of this article focuses on the
decision to launch during this Centennial Year the first
major fund-raising campaign in the history of the
College.
At the April meeting of the College’s Board of Ad
visors in 1975, the proposal was made that we should
prepare for a major fund-raising campaign to coincide
with the College’s Centennial Year, and that this
campaign should be conducted with the assistance of
fund-raising counsel, just as other colleges throughout
the nation have done for many years. Acting on this, I
proposed at the next meeting of the Board of Advisors
in October, 1975, that Ketchum, Inc., a highly reputable
fund-raising firm, be engaged to conduct the cam
paign. This proposal was adopted and in November,
1975, the representative of this firm took up his duties
at the College and initiated the pre-campaign process
to discover if we had the potential support to justify the
mounting of a full-scale drive. After some two-and-a-
half months of this process, it was decided that, though
the Abbey had relatively few regular donors compared
with other colleges, there was sufficient justification
for undertaking a full-scale campaign.
So now Belmont Abbey College finds itself embarked
on its first ever major fund-raising campaign, an event
that for most other colleges throughout the nation has
been for many years a normal and regular part of their
operation. The basic reason, of course, why this is
abnormal for the Abbey, yet normal for other colleges,
springs from what I have indicated above: the people
to whom we are appealing for substantial donations
are necessarily located in our local area and, of course,
at the same time supporting other private colleges
throughout North Carolina. When I tell you that during
the Abbey’s hundred years’ history, whatever financial
support it has received has for the most part come
from wonderful non-Catholic men of means who are
also at the same time supporting their own
denominational colleges, you will understand why I
often say that the Abbey understood ecumenism long
before the Second Vatican Council talked about it.
As we prepare for this Centennial fund-raising
campaign, we must emphasize the importance of being
able to tell potential large contributors that a
significant percentage of our alumni contribute
whatever they can, thus showing their appreciation of
the College. It is utterly important that we have a
respectable percentage of alumni donors. In checking
out this statistic, I found that the Abbey has an em
barrassingly low percentage of alumni donors.
In seeking an explanation for this, no doubt a number
of reasons can be found for this low statistic. For in
stance, the Abbey has never had the funds to employ a
February, 1976, CROSSROADS, Page 5
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Rev. John P. Bradley, President
full-time alumni director who would constantly keep in
touch with alumni. Again, I sometimes think that the
problem may have something to do with the Abbey
family atmosphere leading so many people to take for
granted the wonderful generosity of the Benedictines.
Whatever the reason, I feel sure that the College has
done a poor job in telling Abbey students and alumni
the facts. No one, for instance, ever told Abbey
students that by paying what the College charged for
their four years’ education here, the students were
actually paying about 59 per cent of the real cost. In
other words, at the Abbey there is a large gap between
the price charged and the actual cost. No one ever told
the Abbey students that the difference between the
price charged and the actual cost has always been
picked up by the College and that the College by and
large was able to do this because each and every
Benedictine working in the administration or on the
faculty, was, through his contributed service, per
sonally contributing over $7,000 every year for the
education of Abbey students. No one ever told the
Abbey students that highly competent staff members
worked for much less salary here than they could
command in a commercial business. No one
ever told the Abbey students that certain excellent lay
With this in mind, I wrote our alumni recently
outlining the importance of our alumni giving par
ticularly during our Centennial Year, so that we can
report a much higher percentage of alumni giving that
we have had in the past, as we go about the work of
soliciting large contributions in our fund-raising
campaign.
We are now in a position to compare the response to
this letter, over a three month period, with the
response received to last year’s letter, over a similar
period. In 1975, 4,500 letters were sent out. We had 160
replies contributing a total of $6,878.15. This year we
again sent out $4,500 letters, which generated 195
replies, contributing a total of $13,973.00. This year’s
letter then brought to the College a little more than
double the amount yielded by last year’s. What seems
to have happened is that the small number who
habitually give, plus a few more, doubled their giving
to help us report a better alumni oerformance during
Continued On Page 6
Anti-Abortion
Rally Held
Thursday, January 22,
marked the third an
niversary of the Supreme
Court’s decision to
legalize abortions. As
elsewhere throughout the
United States, events
were scheduled at
Belmont in protest of the
ruling. At 6:30 that
evening a motorcade
assembled in front of the
St. Leo’s Building on the
Belmont Abbey campus.
Accompanied by two
police escorts, the cars,
complete with signs,
made their way to St.
Partick’s Cathedral in
Charlotte. There, at 7:30
p.m. a con-celebrated
Mass was held, “to show
concern for the life of the
unborn.’’ The principle
celebrant for the event
was Bishop Bagley who
stated in his homily, “it is
in celebrating life we
come to know God and we
offer up this Mass for
those who did not have
this chance to love and
for those who perform
such deeds.’’
All were urged to write
North Carolina Senator,
Jessie Helms, who is in
support of the Anti
Abortion movement.