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Chautauqua and the Oblates by Harry Winter OMI |
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Two Oblates, Tony Rigoli and Frank Montalbano, served as the Catholic chaplains at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York during the week of August 12-19, 2006. However, this is not the first contact between Oblates and this famous religious and cultural center. Our relationship goes back much further. Founded in 1874 by a Methodist Sunday school superintendent, Lewis Miller, and his minister friend, John Heyl Vincent, to train Sunday school teachers, the Chautauqua Institution, near Jamestown, NY, quickly became the model for summer camp meetings. Many of these places immediately blossomed into cultural and literary centers of a decidedly liberal bent. From the very early days, the Methodists welcomed Catholics, and arranged for them to travel by boat on Lake Chautauqua to a nearby Catholic church for Sunday Mass. Lay Catholics pushed the Diocese of Buffalo for their own center on the beautiful campus; today, a lovely Catholic residence overlooks the main amphitheatre. During the nine week summer season, two priests each week celebrate two daily Masses and four weekend Masses for Catholic participants.
It would be interesting to know of Oblate participation in Chautauqua’s which Methodism spread around the USA. Joe Arong, OMI was featured in a mailing by Oblate Media promoting a documentary on Asian and Pacific presence in America (Harmony in Faith) as having participated in a “multi-cultural ‘Chautauqua’ in Bay Point, California.” When I was assigned to the Texas Conference of Churches, I spent a week during the summers of 1977 and 1978 at the Methodist Conference Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas’ “Mount Sequoyah Assembly.” Patterned on Chautauqua, this center offered every summer a week for Christian families from eight southwestern states – “The Conference on Ecumenical Mission.” One of the eleven regional interdenominational summer conferences held in cooperation with the Department of Education for Mission, National Council of Churches and Church Women United, the week prepared Sunday School teachers for the coming school year. The number of small children and babies proved the family orientation of these centers. For me personally, going to the New York Chautauqua gave me a chance to research something that had puzzled me from my childhood. I grew up in Norwich, NY, near Syracuse, and my father reminisced often about the summer traveling tent chautauqua’s which visited Norwich for a week every summer during his childhood. He remembered how his uncle, the local Catholic pastor, would get the whole family ready to attend that week’s attractions, especially Shakespeare’s plays. But, I thought, Methodists and Catholics didn’t mix in those days. Was my father’s memory faulty? I visited the head archivist, John Schmidt, on July 8, 2005, and he loaned me two books which explained that companies contracted with the Chautauqua Institution for rights to a specific section of the USA. Redpath Chautauqua’s of New York and New England had the rights to upstate New York, and one book contained the 1925 schedule for Norwich. The presentations included Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado,” the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and Booker T. Washington. Also very popular was a play “The Melting Pot,” describing how immigrants of all nationalities were merging into a distinctively American culture. Speakers also discussed Prohibition and the League of Nations. The religious services were carefully separated from the cultural events, so Catholics could attend the latter. My father’s memories proved accurate. I noticed that the small Catholic chapel had no Marian image. An icon “Madonna and Child” (13th century, Moscow school) now hangs in the chapel, with this inscription on the back: “Given to the Chautauqua Catholic Community by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Buffalo, NY, July 2005, with gratitude for assigning Fathers George Kirwin, OMI, Tony Rigoli, OMI and Harry Winter, OMI as weekly chaplains.” Anyone interested in the Chautauqua Institution may visit its website (www.ciweb.org). |
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The 2006 season was Tony’s 7th time; in
2000, he and George Kirwin, OMI shared a week. In 2005, I was chaplain for a
week.