History

     Several years ago, two community members began the task of collecting information for a comprehensive narrative chronicling the history of the Catholic Community at Stanford.  Using original documents obtained from various sources around the diocese, and conducting extensive interviews with several past directors and active community members, Mary Jane Parrine and Rosemary Enthoven are in the process of creating a detailed history for eventual publication, and preparing these precious records for proper archiving so that future generations will know where we came from.

     What follows is a temporary summary and chronology, using their research and the memories of long-time staff members.  Many thanks to them for their ongoing efforts:

 A 1999 Stanford Daily article titled “Flourishing faith – Stanford's Catholics build vibrant community” cites invigorated programs fostering diversity and growth.  Hard work in recent decades led to this success, evolving as well through a story that began from scratch in 1903.

     From its 1891 inception, Stanford’s non-sectarian policies accommodated only the beginnings of what would eventually become a multi-faith campus ministry.  Small clubs were the first step toward collective identity for Catholic students.  A small group formed the Montgomery Club in 1903, when barely 4% of the University’s total enrollment of about 1500 students was Catholic.  Some of them had helped raise funds for the new parish church in Palo Alto (St. Thomas Aquinas); the parish and the S.F. Diocese repaid the favor by providing chaplains for Catholic students.  One of the first was Fr. Joseph Gleason, a scholar and women’s suffrage activist, who helped create the Junipero Serra Club in 1913; it ultimately became the Newman Club in 1929. That year Chaplain James Cronin invited the editor of Commonweal to speak on renewal in the church. 

     In its first two decades, the Stanford Newman Club might seem puny by our standards.  Membership ebbed at times, revived through strong efforts, but above all benefitted from being part of a larger whole. One foundational asset was the university’s good relationship with the SF diocese during the tenure of Archbishop Edward Hanna (1915-35). Things changed significantly under his successor, Archbishop John Mitty (1935-61). A strong proponent of private Catholic universities, Mitty consistently enforced limits on Catholic interaction with other faiths, especially within a secular private university.  Unlike his predecessor, he disapproved of ecumenical overtures and declined invitations to speak at Stanford’s Baccalaureate services.

     An archbishop’s viewpoints would not deter the new Catholic chaplain, Fr. (later Msgr.) Joseph Munier, who began his first stint with the Newman Club in 1939. Percentages of Catholics grew every year. Catholic students’ numbers were still rising: e.g., 13.3% in 1939-40.  Fr. Munier then returned in 1946 to a campus with surging enrollments:  well over 7,000 that year, more than half of them veterans.  After WWII ended, Catholic Chaplin Joseph Munier sought the right to celebrate Masses on campus.   Fr. Munier and his associate Fr. William McGuire pressed for an appointment of a full time Catholic chaplain, not one shared with St. Thomas Aquinas parish or St. Patrick’s Seminary.  Going further, Munier argued the need for a building dedicated to the Newman Club, supplemented by Catholic Masses in Memorial Church. 

     An unexpected obstacle arose.  Though his tenure would be short (1943-48), President Donald Tresidder quickly implemented business principles and building plans. He showed little patience with suggestions that Stanford loosen the strict non-sectarian clause of its Founding Grant.  In 1946 Catholics and other denominations lost their right to meet at a campus site that had been open to them since 1915.  Other options for meetings were curtailed as well.  While his protests won some concessions, subsequent exchanges with President Tresidder led Fr. Munier to complain that he had been “thrown off campus.”  In an open letter to Catholic alumni, he described what he called limits on the freedom of religion that were of grave concern.  His opinions were shared by other campus leaders, such as Dr. Paul Johnston, University Chaplain, who feared that Memorial Church had become “pious dressing for an institution otherwise committed.”

     In that uncomfortable atmosphere, Munier, McGuire and the Diocese of San Francisco were able to secure an off-campus location for a Newman center which the diocese purchased in 1949.  Often called the “Norris House” after its former owner, novelist Kathleen Thompson Norris (1890-1966), it would include a chaplain’s residence and student dormitory.  In 1950, Fr. John Tierney moved in as the first full-time Chaplain (1950-61).  In 1951 the newly constructed St. Ann’s chapel was added to the Melville/Cowper location as a gift from Clare Booth Luce in memory of her daughter, a Stanford junior killed in an auto accident in 1944.

     The Chapel’s beauty and liturgies attracted a devoted congregation of students and others from the University and local community. In the next three decades the Newman Club and St. Ann’s fostered lively liturgies influenced by the beginning phases of Vatican II.   But it was still off campus.  Why not be able to hold Catholic Masses on campus as well at St. Ann’s?  Little by little, this idea became reality.  Finally through the efforts of Fr. John Duryea, the first Catholic Mass took place in Memorial church in 1966, celebrated by Frs. Duryea and Robert Giguere.  It was on Sunday at 4:30, a time that the Catholic community has maintained.  The necessary change to the Founding Grant’s terms had taken years to accomplish through cooperative work with other religious groups on campus and a strong campaign by the Stanford Daily.

     Memorial Church would become a site of regular Sunday Masses as well as a hub for matters of conscience, including a gathering of 2000 students at an all night Peace Vigil in 1967.  Ecumenical efforts, notably those of Robert McAfee Brown and Fr. Eugene Boyle, helped encourage Catholic studies both on campus and through cooperative programs with neighboring institutions.  Seeing the need for programming specifically aimed at the student population, Father Boyle hired a priest whose major responsibility was campus ministry.   This allowed the ministry to provide daily office hours in the Clubhouse of the Old Union, and daily Mass in the Common Room of the Old Union.  The student community became very active, with two Sunday Masses on the campus as well as weekend retreats and group sessions in the undergraduate dorms. 

     In 1983, Father Tim Kidney became Director of the Newman Center; his responsibilities included all the activities of St Ann’s Chapel and the house in Palo Alto, as well as ministry to the students, staff and faculty at Stanford University.  At this time, Nancy Greenfield joined the staff as a part-time volunteer, particularly working in the RCIA program and on retreats.  In 1984, Bishop DuMaine called upon the Jesuits at Santa Clara to see if they could provide a chaplain for the Newman Center at Stanford as he felt the Diocese could not provide enough “priest power” to staff the students’ needs. Father Roide was given the assignment. He was supposed to stay for 2 years, but stayed until 1992.

     Several successful programs were initiated by Father Kidney and Father Roide: the ecumenical “Brown Bag Lunches”(the most successful of which was a series titled “The Seven Deadly Sins”), Reinhart Lectures, and co-coordinated coursework in such topics as Liberation Theology, Social Justice and Catholic Social Teaching.

     In 1985, Bishop DuMaine followed through on a plan to bring the four existing parishes in Palo Alto into one parish led by a new pastor, Father Al Larkin. Father Kidney was reassigned to a parish in San José. At that time, Fr. Kidney recommended that St. Ann’s and the Newman Center at Stanford be kept separate from the re-organized parish, with its own status and leadership. This plan was not fully implemented.  At that time, The Newman center was not its own parish but was attached to the newly combined parish of St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Ann’s was closed.

     Father Roide instituted a series of seminars in the dorms. These were discussion groups arranged by the students under the leadership of students and Father Roide.  He felt that they were very successful, and brought relevant subjects and prayer into the lives of the students in the dorms.  Father Roide also began the evenings of Taizé Prayer. He and the Lutheran Chaplain co-coordinated these prayer services which became very popular. They were initially held in the Common Room of the Old Union and attended by 60 to 70 students.

     He instituted the Midnight Mass for the students at Memorial Church on a Saturday evening before Christmas vacation. This became a highlight of the school year, as it is today. For this Mass, he borrowed the large crèche from St. Albert’s, a yearly moving challenge.  For all of the Masses, he encouraged and trained a volunteer army of student readers, greeters, holders of baskets at the Church doors, and musicians.

     When Father Roide was reassigned, Father Jim Erps, S.J. took over as Chaplain until the Jesuits decided in 1994 that they were too short-handed to provide the services. In 1995 the Dominican priests took over the ministry.

     Father Patrick LaBelle, O.P., of the Western Dominican Province increased the network of campus relationships begun under Father Roide and Father Erps, particularly with the Office for Religious Life, with the Athletic Department, and with the office of the President.  He and the Rev. Joanne Sanders, Associate Dean for Religious Life, conducted regular prayer breakfasts for all the home games during the football season, and he was an ardent fan of other sports events as well.  At this time, there were two priests and a part time volunteer trying to grow a program that was intended to reach the 20% of the student body who claimed to be Catholic, and a program that would appeal as well to those Catholics who were not as active.  His first new hire was Teresa Pleins, whose major responsibility was as Director of Liturgy, but who, in reality, did everything from working to establish religious formation for young children to counseling undergraduates and graduates.  The wonderful liturgies held both at Tresidder on Sunday mornings and Memorial Church on Sunday afternoons helped to grow the community exponentially, as more and more attended for the beauty of the worship and great homilies, and as more and more students and permanent community became involved in liturgical ministries.  In addition, CCAS served our students, staff and alums, by preparing couples and presiding over about a third of the weddings in Memorial Church.  At this point, Nancy Greenfield became a paid staff member, albeit part-time.

     In July of 1997, Bishop DuMaine declared CCAS to be a personal parish, under the name St. Dominic’s.  As a parish in its own right, CCAS was responsible for its own programs, governance and finances. Within several years, proceeds from the sale of the Norris house, which the diocese had purchased for the Newman Center back in 1950 were earmarked for the benefit of this new parish, but administered by the Diocese of San José.   The permanent community was a generous source of funding as well. By this time, the staff had grown to include two priests, a part time lay chaplain, a full time lay chaplain and director of liturgy, a parish administrator (Vivis Colombetti, then Kathryn Gray), a director of Catholic wedding preparation, and an intern. Within several years the ministry grew further to include a second intern for student programming, and Sister Gloria Marie Jones, O.P. to handle the children’s catechetical program and to oversee the Children’s Liturgy of the Word and student Small Groups.  Due to the shortage of space in the Old Union Clubhouse, CCAS began renting space at University Lutheran Church on Stanford Avenue for programming, for wedding intake, for storage and for administrative offices.  By this time, sister Gloria had gone on to become Congregational Prioress of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San José, and her permanent replacement became Catherine Wolff.  Catherine’s passionate interest in social justice issues and the role of the Church in the World, led her to oversee many thought-provoking and exciting speakers on political and religious topics.  

     In 2007, CCAS was able to purchase a small compound on Stanford Avenue adjacent to the University.  The three cottages housed our offices and programming space and living quarters for the interns.  As the budget began to outstrip the resources available from the diocese and from our generous donors, it was necessary to reduce our staff.    At that time, we lost Kathryn Gray, Catherine Wolff, one intern and reduced the hours of a part-time staff member, filling in with part-time staff as we could afford them.   We rented out our main office and programming space and one of the intern cottages.   With development efforts in place, we hope to add back the programming it was necessary to curtail and to grow our programs in several areas.  An active Finance Board and a supportive Leadership Council assembled from all over the country have helped to craft a five-year strategic plan which, when completed, will ensure that the programs, personnel and activities of the Catholic Community at Stanford are on a par with the world-class standards and spirit of Stanford University.