Featuring: B. Paul Cotter, Jr. ’59
As an Old Guard alumnus involved as Reunion Chairman, Secretary, President (for the five years leading up to both my 25th and 50th Reunions), and a past member of the Alumni Council, I am hugely impressed with the Aquinas Institute’s enormous value for Princeton students. That’s especially true for me because the Institute in my undergraduate years was a mere shadow of what it is today.
I came to Princeton as a good Irish Catholic boy whose immigrant grandfather arrived in Philadelphia in 1895 with a tool kit and a dream and went on to become a major church builder. (Included in his contributions is the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg.) I went to private Catholic grammar and high schools before arriving – without my Archbishop’s permission, which was required at the time – at a Princeton whose Presbyterian roots still mandated Sunday Chapel for all. Happily, verified Sunday Mass attendance at the Aquinas Institute was an acceptable substitute. None of my six non-Catholic roommates ever went with me.
All along, Aquinas was my Catholic anchor. The Institute, then housed in a mansion behind a brick wall, was a 15-minute walk from my dorm. Its chapel, a converted ballroom, probably held 100 to 125 at every Sunday’s packed Latin Mass. (The first Mass in English in America occurred 6 years after my 1959 graduation from Princeton.)
When I look at the Aquinas Institute today, I just marvel at its campus proximity, the diverse, highly qualified staff, and the rich scope of its educational offerings. That adult education in Catholicism, available for all undergraduates, is priceless! I missed it, and so am delighted now to be able to support it intellectually and financially as much as I can.