Grieving Parents Call for Reform of Corrupt Benedictine Abbey in Minnesota

Edit: back in March, we took notice of the almost unanimous absence in local reporting of the abuse and suicide of Ben Spanier, and the man who most directly caused it, the Prior of St. John's Abbey, Father Tom Andert, now on leave of absence.  Andert was subsequently placed on restriction and relived of his duties pending the investigation.  When the story of Andert's dismissal broke, the local news media completely ignored Ben's very credible accusations and his death, covered almost exclusively in a blog by a former alumnus of St. John's Preparatory School.

Only yesterday, National Public Radio, itself born at Collegeville, did a piece about Ben's parents, who are calling for a change in the "culture of secrecy" at St. John's Abbey.  It's not clear what is meant by this, but the sincerity of his grieving parents and the contempt with which they've been treated by the Abbey is very real, indeed.

To date, no one is calling for the resignation of Abbot John Klassen who has consistently lied to protect predators and preserve the atmosphere of heresy in collegeville.  Those who were very vocal in calling for the resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt, like the dissident St. John's alum, Father Mark Tegeder, are completely silent now.

How a story like this could be passed over in the local Catholic and secular media is truly a thing to behold.  We hope this call for reform isn't a call for their kind of reform.

[NPR] His parents say his problems began 20 years earlier, when he was a student at St. John's Prep in Collegeville. They say their son wasn't the same after he began spending time with the Rev. Tom Andert, a prominent priest who was placed on leave earlier this year for a separate allegation of sexual misconduct. 

The Spaniers say they're coming forward now because they want the culture at St. John's to change. Ben Spanier had attempted suicide before. His father, Eric, will never forget picking up the phone that night in 1994. On the other end of the line was the Rev. Tom Andert, the head of the boarding school at St. John's, where Ben was a junior.
"I answered the phone," Eric Spanier said. "He was calling from the emergency room in the hospital, so it was a shock." 

He said he was relieved the priest was there to care for his son.

Benedictine Abbey Lying About Prior's Accusation -- Media Gives "Helping" Hand

Edit: St. John's Abbey is at it again, attempting to  throw up a diversion by getting a press release about an accusation that "happened 30 years ago," while ignoring a much more credible, damaging one against the same perpetrator.  The resignation, pending a further investigation of Father Thomas Andert, has been unsatisfactorily  covered in the various Minnesota media organs [here, here, SC Times which is usually favorable to Collegeville. NPR goes to some lengths to point out that the accusation is not detailed.  [How helpful.]. None of these news items mentions another accusation leveled against this monk, even going to the point of lying about it.  As Aelred Senna, the Abbey's spokesman is quoted as saying:

The abbey said they have no other incidents or allegations filed against him.1

 What about the other, very credible accusation which the Abbey, and coincidentally the press, is ignoring?  We'd made mention earlier that Andert had preyed upon a young man who recently committed suicide.  There's also evidence of Andert's grooming his alleged victim with his  odd love letters.  There is no mention of this by any of the news media.

It is possible that after they determine that the accusation isn't credible, they'll reinstate Andert as Prior.


We also gotta ask... Where are the dissident leftists like Father Michael Tegeder, who were so vocal when Archbishop Nienstedt was being attacked relentlessly by the national and local news media?  The national news media doesn't seem to care on this count.  They weren't very helpful during the Marriage Amendment, either.

Josh Guimond is still missing and St. John's Abbey is still an organ of error and deceitfulness.

Victim of Modernist Abbey's Prior Died by Own Hand

Edit: there's so much that's wrong with this place, it's sometimes hard to know where to begin, and it's difficult to understand why nothing has been done. In most other parts of the world and walks of life, if there were  individuals devoted to a profession, a vocation, no matter how hallowed their institution was, who did not act according to the standards of their profession, its best practices and guidelines, hopefully, society would respond by correcting violations  of the rules by disciplinary, and even criminal proceedings.  But imagine if  a doctor violated ethical rules surrounding his practice and even broke laws? What if that doctor willfully murdered his patients and society did nothing to stop him?  That would indeed be a very corrupt and degraded society.

St. John's Abbey in Collegeville is a place where the spirit of the rules adumbrated by the Rule of the founder of the order of St. Benedict are routinely ignored,  but they're not content to ignore the rules, they vitiate them as well.  As for the dogmas of the Catholic Faith, these are routinely held in scorn by the monks through their public witness and their impudence and disobedience.  It's doubtful that the Masses said there are licit, they have often been blasphemous.

In contrast to the obedient and chaste Franciscans of the Immaculate, who have been going through their own Golgotha, and are charged with no known infractions of their own charters and rules, or any ethical violations, (Indeed, it's their Commissar, Father Fidenzio Volpe, who has broken Italian law by slandering the Manelli family.)   St. John's Abbey has a sickening catalog of sins, heresies, abuses and criminal acts of the most wicked kind.

Yet despite the public nature of the scandal surrounding St. John's Abbey, there is no visitor being sent, no coadjutor appointed.  St. John's Abbey is "in good standing".

We heard about this in mid-February, and have just now gotten around to putting it here.   A young man who attended the high school run by these "Benedictines" has killed himself, and the man who abused him is the Prior of the Abbey.  (The accusation was very solid by the way, since the Predator Prior wrote love letters to his victim.) What that poor young man described as a "culture of hypocrisy" thrives on in its festering malignancy, as reported on January 23rd of this year by the Pine Curtain. (The man's untimely death was announced in a warning to Kettler residents whose children were to be attending an event at St. John's Abbey.)

Despite all the time that's past, we haven't heard much about this, nothing has happened.

Father Tom Andert is not only a priest in good standing, but he's the Prior of St. John's Abbey.  It's arguably one of the least Catholic places in the world.

Josh Guimond is also still missing.