Saint Joseph Abbey Church

The monks who arrived from St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana in 1889 had been summoned by the Most Reverend Francis Janssens with a mandate: the diocese of New Orleans was being staffed by foreign pastors and needed native-born priests. The Benedictines first tried seventeen hundred acres near Ponchatoula but met unworkable land and illness from mosquitoes. In 1902 they relocated north of Covington to a former rice plantation at St. Benedict, where the monastery now occupies fifteen hundred acres of piney woods. The Romanesque abbey church was built in 1929. In 1946 Abbot Columbian commissioned Dom Gregory De Wit, a Benedictine artist, to fill the church, monastery, and refectory with murals depicting saints, biblical stories, God's creation, and the life of St. Benedict. De Wit formulated paint that could withstand South Louisiana's humidity. In the early 2000s the abbey acquired a Dobson Pipe Organ, opus 2000, which appeared on the cover of *The American Organist* in April 2001. Musicians travel to St. Joseph to play and record on the instrument. The forty-five monks follow the Rule of Saint Benedict—*Ora et labora*, pray and work. They pray the liturgy of the hours four times daily, starting at 6:00 a.m. and closing with compline at 7:15 p.m. Daily Mass anchors midday. The abbey church has become home for many worshipers who live near the monastery; numerous people attend the monks' mass and prayers every day. Saint Joseph Seminary College, the monastery's founding purpose, still trains men seeking ordination as Roman Catholic priests. The seminary offers bachelor's degrees in Liberal Arts and occupies separate buildings from the monastery. The rector, vice-rector, and some teaching staff are monks. The monks are involved in candle making, gardening, beekeeping, and painting. They brew Abbey beer and bake bread sold on the grounds. For over twenty-three years the Pennies for Bread program has baked about two thousand loaves weekly for distribution to organizations serving the homeless and poor of New Orleans and the North Shore—orphanages, homes for battered women, food banks, senior centers, the Salvation Army. After Hurricane Katrina leveled many trees in St. Tammany Parish in 2005, the monks revived the ancient monastic practice of casket making to cover education and health care costs. The Louisiana Board of Funeral Directors moved to shut down the business before it sold a single casket, citing a state law requiring government licensure to sell caskets. Eight of the nine board members worked in the funeral industry. The Institute for Justice represented the abbey. In 2013 the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in *St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille* that economic regulation cannot mask "economic protection of the rulemakers' pockets." Free self-guided walks of the church and refectory are welcome during daylight hours. The murals alone justify the drive. The beer and bread justify a second trip.