Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the First Benedictine Monastery in the United States

Mission to America tells the fascinating story of the founding of the first Benedictine monastery in the United States and provides an account of the development of monastic life in America. Jerome Oetgen, author of An American Abbot: Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., traces the history of Saint Vincent monastery, parish, seminary, college, prep school, and scholasticate in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, from the founding of the Sportsman's Hall parish in 1790 to the election of Rembert Weakland as the seventh archabbot in 1963. The book is an outstanding contribution not only to American Benedictine, but also to American Catholic history.

Using American and European archival sources, as well as documents and letters in Saint Vincent records, Oetgen covers the entire one-hundred-and-fifty-year history of the monastery, its missions and schools, in chronological order.

"A lasting contribution to American church history. . . . By investigating the differences in articulation that each successive (arch)abbot brought to Saint Vincent, Oetgen is able to show both historical progression and theoretical development. It is unusual for an institutional history to accomplish that pairing so seamlessly and successfully. This is an enormously insightful work, one that students-as well as those with a more casual interest-of American religious history will find compelling, informative, and instructive. The depth of Oetgen's understanding, both of how a monastery works and how it strives to work, keeps this story fascinating and current at all points in the narrative."-Dom Paschal Baumstein, O.S.B.

"Saint Vincent's has a unique history and deserves, by its pride of place and influence, a well-documented and scholarly study. This book fills a long-neglected void in American Catholic historiography."-Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M.