Monk’s Tale: The Pilgrimage Begins, 1941–1975 (review)
- Monk’s Tale: The Pilgrimage Begins, 1941–1975
The president of the University of Notre Dame from 1987 to 2005 provides an informative and readable memoir starting from birth to completion of graduate studies. Born May 3, 1941, at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, Edward Aloysius Malloy, named for his father, was the first child of Catholic parents recently relocated to the nation’s capital from their hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Two sisters soon followed. In the fourth grade Edward shortened the nickname of schoolmate “Bunky” to “Bunk.” Bunk returned the favor by coining the nickname “Monk.” Since then Monk has consistently used his nickname, preferred over “Father,” as he is “never big on the use of titles or other formal signs of deference” (p. 229).
The Malloys’ home was an apartment in Washington’s Brookland neighborhood or “little Rome”—location of The Catholic University of America, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and an array of Catholic institutions. Monk’s parents, called Dad and Mom in the book, were high school [End Page 396] graduates. Dad supported a modest lifestyle as a claims adjuster for Washington’s transit system. Mom was a full-time homemaker during her children’s school years, then took office positions in local Catholic institutions.
Monk’s thoughtful narrative recounts a faith-filled Catholic upbringing in Brookland’s St. Anthony parish before the Second Vatican Council. Within that culture his parents modeled differing approaches to Catholic living. Dad was a devotional Catholic with attachment to the National Shrine; pride in Catholic celebrities; fervent anticommunism; and active membership in the Knights of Columbus, Knights of St. John, and the Serra Club. Mom as “low church” preferred “quick masses, brief homilies . . . and little folderol” (p. 14). She was not readily impressed with titles and ranks of the higher clergy she met as a church employee. They also had political differences: Dad an active Republican, Mom a liberal Democrat.
At St. Anthony School, Benedictine sisters launched Monk’s life of learning; one influential teacher for three grades instilled a love of reading. Team sports were central to his upbringing. He flourished at John Carroll High School where Augustinian priests reinforced the importance of faith and learning. Enthusiasm for basketball was rewarded with his high school team’s championship triumphs during his senior year. Monk reveals no adolescent rebellion, major personal crises, or religious doubts.
A basketball scholarship brought Monk to Notre Dame in 1959 with hopes of more athletic success and an engineering career. He faced two setbacks: basketball games spent mostly on the bench and discovering his talents were not suited to engineering. Instead, English literature became his absorbing intellectual interest. Faith and Kennedy-era idealism prompted him to volunteer in summer 1962 for Notre Dame’s Council for the International Lay Apostolate (CILA) service program in Mexico with other students. While there, a quiet religious experience at the Cristo Rey Shrine revealed a call to the religious life and priesthood.
Monk describes his path to the priesthood within the Congregation of Holy Cross with close attention to the era’s social and religious changes. From 1963, the story unfolds through a candidate year, novitiate, theological studies, and process of earning an MA in English. Volunteer adventures took him to Mexico, Peru, Detroit, and Washington, DC. Varied experiences by ordination in 1970
all disposed me [Monk] to be an advocate for social justice and to be open to the rethinking of complicated social issues. I did not feel comfortable with fanatics of either the left or the right. I was a centrist by temperament and disposition who was convinced that positive change could be effected by good analysis, persuasive arguments, group mobilization, and hard work.
(p. 230) [End Page 397]
After ordination, Monk ventured beyond the familiar Catholic educational world for graduate studies in ethics at Vanderbilt University. Studying with Protestant faculty and students provided a broad intellectual experience before joining Notre Dame’s theology department...
