A Tree Rooted in Faith: A History of Queen of Angels Monastery (review)

A Tree Rooted in Faith explores the narrative of the Queen of Angels Benedictine Monastery in Oregon. The author, Alberta Dieker, O.S.B., seeks to show that out of contested, uncertain, and turbulent circumstances Benedictine women crafted a viable and enduring community of professed religious in the American West. The account ranges from the mid-nineteenth-century formation of the Maria Rickenbach Benedictine convent in Switzerland to the present ministry of the community at Mt. Angel, Oregon. This is an important publication for three reasons.

First, this book joins a current trend that relies on critical analysis to examine the role of religious women in building American Catholicism. Once only seen through a haze of glossy piety, nuns and sisters are at last presented as independent and perceptive women, acting through personal agency for the benefit of their religious order and their Church. As Dieker shows, nuns who left European monasteries for American convents did not allow an array of obstacles to deter them from their congregational and faith-grounded goals. Hazardous travel, illness and death, language barriers, anti-Catholic activists, excessive poverty, as well as misunderstandings between and among colleagues may have threatened but did not defeat the many sisters who dedicated themselves to the mission fields. Their diverse labors, complex decisions, and bold vision significantly strengthened the early American Church, which encountered a number of challenges specific to the United States. That these Benedictine women persevered against forceful opposition—not the least of which came from abbots and bishops—helps to explain the flowering of a robust Roman Catholic faith on American soil.

Second, the author places Catholic missionaries within the larger context of the western epic, demonstrating how they meshed with the general migration patterns of the nineteenth century. Fueled by common immigrant impulses, such as the desire to escape disagreeable companions, to claim promising new lands, or to carve out fresh venues of power, these Oregon Benedictines understood and seized the opportunities of the West. Through their initiatives to build schools, convents, hospitals, and chapels, the sisters dramatically increased the visibility of the institutional church in the West, even as they wrestled with definitions of a Benedictine identity cast upon an American stage. Thus, the pioneer travel and settlement of the Benedictine women duplicated the lives of their lay counterparts but also embraced issues particular to a monastic environment.

Third, A Tree Rooted in Faith depicts men and women religious and secular as real people. Drawing on a rich collection of archival records, Dieker teases out the personalities and their controversies with an even hand, suggesting reasonable explanations for many opaque conflicts. As a result, this is a work notable for its direct and measured tone, one that illuminates the humanity and the spirituality of those who have been part of the Queen of Angels Monastery. A Tree Rooted in Faith, graced by engaging photographs, although lacking maps and an index, reminds the reader that the histories of religious women are central to understanding Catholicism in the American West and the nation at large.