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The Critical Principles of Orestes A. Brownson, by Virgil G. Michel
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This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Virgil George Michel was an American priest, philosopher, liturgist, and educator.
Background
Christened George Francis Michel was born on June 26, 1890, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was the first son and second of fifteen children of Fred and Mary (Griebler) Michel. His mother was the daughter of German parents who had settled in St. Paul in 1853; her father later became the first organist in Assumption Church in that city and a teacher in its parochial school. Michel's father, who had come to St. Paul from Germany in 1883, owned one of the city's largest general stores and engaged in a real estate, loan, and insurance business. While city-bred, young Michel spent much of his happy youth on the farm of his stepmother's parents (his own mother had died in 1898) near Jordan, Minn.
Education
After attending Assumption parochial school, Michel enrolled in 1903 at St. John's Preparatory School and, four years later, at St. John's University, both conducted by the Benedictine monks of St. John's Abbey at Collegeville, Minn. Here, after considerable hesitation, he decided to become a monk in the Order of St. Benedict. It was in 1909, when he joined the Order, that he took the first name of Virgil. Resuming his college work in 1910, he received the Ph. B. degree from St. John's in 1912, an earlier B. A. in Latin had come when he completed the two-year classical course in 1909 and an M. A. in 1913. He pronounced his solemn vows on September 26, 1913, and was ordained a priest in 1916. He then attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. , where in 1918 he received his doctorate in English and a licentiate in theology, with minors in philosophy and languages. His doctoral dissertation, The Critical Principles of Orestes A. Brownson (1918), though mediocre, opened up to him the rich and ramified thought of this nineteenth-century intellectual figure, who left an indelible mark on Michel's mind. In the summers of 1917-18, Michel studied education at Columbia University.
Career
From 1918 to 1924, Michel taught religion, English, and philosophy at St. John's University and also held various administrative posts, including that of dean of the college. In February 1924, Michel began philosophical studies under the well-known metaphysician Joseph Gredt at the International Benedictine College of St. Anselm in Rome. Dissatisfied with Gredt's approach, methods, and texts, he spent an enjoyable and profitable year at the University of Louvain in 1924-25. Here he began outlines for a series of much-needed Thomistic philosophical texts for American colleges, although the pressure of later work prevented him from completing more than a single volume. Much more significant was the knowledge he acquired of the liturgical movement, which had not as yet made an impact upon the English-speaking nations. The liturgical movement was an effort to center Catholic life in the Mass and other sacraments by promoting a better understanding of them and hence an intelligent participation in them by the Catholic laity. Having convinced his superior of the need of such a movement for English-speaking Catholics, and having successfully urged that St. John's Abbey take up its promotion and be its center, Michel, during extensive "study trips, " consulted many European liturgical leaders and scholars, of whom the famous Belgian Benedictine Dom Lambert Beauduin especially influenced him. Home in the fall of 1925, Michel, with the support of Abbot Alcuin Deutsch, at once laid plans for founding the movement's organ, Orate Fratres, and establishing the Liturgical Press. Under his guiding hand as editor of Orate Fratres and intellectual leader, the liturgical movement gradually took firm roots in the United States, though not without considerable misunderstanding and opposition. Exhausted by labor, Michel spent the years 1930-33 recuperating as a missionary among the Chippewa Indians of northern Minnesota and then returned for the final but most fruitful years of his short life. He literally worked himself to death, which came to him at the age of forty-eight in Collegeville as the result of a streptococcic infection. He was buried in the Abbey cemetery there.
Achievements
Michel's chief contribution was the organization of the American liturgical movement, a vital current in the Catholic Church. It was, in addition, his unique contribution to sketch out the implications of the liturgy for all aspects of human life. Very early he called for an American Scholastic movement, and he never failed to point up the great need for a vital Thomistic philosophy that would wrestle with current problems. Nor did he fail to outline how such a philosophy could be constructed.
A prolific writer, a tireless worker, a strong personal inspiration to others, and a monk of wide-ranging interests, Michel published seven volumes, contributed to many more, and wrote several hundred articles, editorials, and book reviews for more than thirty-five periodicals. The totality of his writings constitutes a kind of Christian synthesis, embracing the natural and supernatural elements of man's life in an ever-changing world. Through a very extensive correspondence he influenced many and participated in the work of various organizations and movements; in these he exhibited a remarkable gift for organizing both thought and action. He gave many spiritual retreats and conferences. While no eloquent speaker, he lectured across the country out of an encyclopedic knowledge on a variety of subjects.
As a leader in the Catholic social movement in the depression years of the 1930's, he spoke out boldly for the reconstruction of society on the basis of an adequate philosophy of human and spiritual values, preserving free enterprise and the capitalist system, but humanizing or "personalizing" economic life, with stress on the social duty of the individual. As an educator and president of the Minnesota Conference of Catholic Colleges, he pleaded for a vital general and Christian education. He was an exponent of the "Great Books" idea and of the various forms of adult education, founding the Institute for Social Studies for this purpose at St. John's University in 1935, when he was again dean of the college.
Personality
Michel was a fair violinist and a capable linguist, as his translations show.
Interests
Two hobbies stand out: his love of nature and of discussion.
Connections
There is no information about his personal life. Perhaps he wasnever married.
