St. Benedict Hall

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A Tudor Gothic structure completed in 1910, St. Benedict Hall contains classrooms, faculty offices and conference rooms. Various administrative offices are also located in this four-story, air-conditioned structure. The ground level includes facilities for the Theatre Arts Department, including the 135-seat Mabee Theatre. The building was rededicated as St. Benedict Hall in 2007 to recognize the monks during their 150th anniversary. The front of the building has an intricately detailed facade, including gargoyles, the statue of St. Benedict, and the signature cross.

St. Benedict Hall Foyer

The murals in the foyer were hand-painted by Brother Bernard Wagner of St. Benedict's Abbey in 1939. They depict Christ, St. Benedict and Aristotle with the greatest Catholic intellectuals in history:

• Abbot Alcuin (735-840), is an English Benedictine called “The most learned man anywhere to be found.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is the great philosopher and doctor of the Church. He was taught as a child by Benedictines.
• Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827), the great German composer, a student of Joseph Haydn.
• Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) who is called simply “the Poet” in Italy.
• Gregory the Great (540-604), Pope St. Gregory I, is a Doctor of the Church and one of the Latin Fathers.
• Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) was Pope from 1878-1903. His Rerum Novarum is the original Catholic social encyclical. He assisted John Henry Newman and Therese of Lisieux.
• Brother Jean Mabillon (1632-1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar and the “greatest historical scholar of his century.” A Paris Métro station is named for him.
• Brother Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was an Augustinian friar whose genetic experiments had an impact on science and agriculture that are felt to our day.
• Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (1475-1654) was the great scuptor and painter.
• St. Raymond of Penyafort, O.P. (1175-1275) created the first canon law, was a great apologist against the claims of Islam, and got Aquinas to write the Summa Contra Gentiles.
• Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) “Full of respect for the form of religion which had been that of his forefathers, he came simply to it and naturally for spiritual help in these last weeks of his life.”