Oblate School launches endowed Montalbano chair in Scripture

Father Frank Montalbano, a now-retired Oblate priest who taught sacred Scripture at the school from 1950-79. Photo provided

SAN ANTONIO • Oblate School of Theology formally inaugurated its new Father Frank Montalbano Chair in Scripture, named for a now-retired Oblate priest who taught sacred Scripture at the school from 1950-79.

Father Montalbano’s students included many of today’s priests in the former Southern Province of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He left for New Orleans in 1979 and earned a large following there as he had in San Antonio. He returned to San Antonio in 2007 and has lived at the Oblate Madonna Residence in retirement. Father Montalbano is 86.

The endowed chair was made possible through the first $1 million of Tom and Gayle Benson’s $15 million challenge grant, presented in April 2008 during the launching of the 106-year-old theology school’s $30 million Building on Faith Capital Campaign. This is believed to be the largest single gift of its kind to any Catholic theology school in the United States.

Tom Benson is an Honorary Oblate of Mary Immaculate, a distinction given to only 21 men and women in the United States. Both he and Gayle Benson are longtime friends of Father Montalbano.

Sister Sarah Ann Sharkey, OP, the current professor of sacred Scripture at OST, is the first to occupy the chair. The school plans to schedule an annual lecture on Scripture in honor of Montalbano.
Father Louis Lougen, OMI, provincial for the United States Province of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and chairman of OST’s Board of Trustees, noted that charism says, “He has sent me to proclaim the good news to the poor,” and added that “our beloved brother has helped us to carry out our charism in a deep and wonderful way for the Gospel.”

He said as an Oblate novice in 1972 in Godfrey, Ill., he watched videos in which Father Montalbano taught a course on the ministerial priesthood. “His teaching shaped us as novices.”

Father Warren Brown, OMI, executive vice president of the school and one of the honoree’s former students, said that Father Montalbano launched his stellar teaching in 1950, “at one of the most exciting and ground breaking times in biblical scholarship.”

“It was the time of the emergence and development of the historical-critical method in Scripture study; it was the time of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls and of the proclamation of that landmark encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu,” which led to the Second Vatican Council’s landmark Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum.”

Father Brown said his former professor inspired students to continue learning and to study more than Scripture so that they, too, would fall in love with Scripture and be passionate preachers of the word of God.

OST’s president, Father Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, noted that school officials thought it appropriate that the first $1 million to be spent from the capital campaign be spent “not on bricks and mortar but to launch this series named after a wonderful Oblate who taught Scripture here for a long time. He has honored the school, and we want to honor him.”

The school president said that when most institutes of higher education create an endowed professorship, they normally go outside their schools’ own faculty rosters to find “a big name.”

“We deliberately didn’t because our ‘big name’ was already inside the school. Those of you who are familiar with Oblate School of Theology know what a wonderful gift Sarah is. She draws students from far and wide. Not everybody can do that,” Father Rolheiser said.

Father Montalbano’s lecture reflected on Paul’s final reflection on life in Christ, which he wrote in II Timothy while a prisoner in a Roman dungeon. The text on which he spoke was II Tim. 1:12 — “I know him in whom I have believed.”

He said the words, which are engraved above the altar in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, might be better translated — “I know the one in whom I have placed my trust.”

Paul’s life in Christ, he said, was a life of suffering and witnessing Christ from the time of his unforgettable conversion experience when he was thrown off a horse on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians until his martyrdom more than 30 years later in Rome.

Father Montalbano said that Paul’s two letters to Timothy and one to Titus are often called “pastoral” and the recipients were Paul’s special collaborators in ministry, Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete.

They reflect Paul’s legacy to a new generation.
“Especially in II Timothy, the writer’s words seem so authentic that they could only have come from the heart and lips of Paul in the 11th hour of his life.”

Although much of the pastoral teaching in that letter doesn’t correspond to the realities of life in the 21st century, Father Montalbano said all Christians are challenged to find meaning in them that goes beyond the original content and is applicable to the church today.

Paul never used the word “conversion” in referring to his Damascus experience and the 180-degree turn in his life. It was not a change of religion but, in the words of retired Cardinal Carlo Martini of Milan, it was “a turning from ideological violence, the fruit of fanaticism.”

The priest noted that Paul’s writings emphasize his pride in his Jewish heritage. When he wrote “I know him in whom I have believed,” he wasn’t speaking of his pre-Damascus life or of what he had learned from the learned Gamaliel but referred to his personal knowledge of Jesus dating back to the Damascus experience.

The phrase “in whom I have believed,” he said, is in the perfect tense, meaning it refers to an uninterrupted state since Paul’s first act of Christian faith.

“The object of Paul’s believe is not a creed but a person. It’s also a vision and an allegiance. Paul was well aware that the Hebrew word for faith was derived from the verb that means ‘to be firm, to be sure.’”

“Faith is solid. It’s capable of standing pressure, and Paul experienced pressure from within and without his own community throughout his missionary life. Faith is something that one can lean, which one can stand against like a solid wall — a stone wall — as contrasted with a flimsy stage prop, which may look strong but is most unstable,” Father Montalbano said.

Paul was convinced, the priest said, of the reliability of Jesus Christ as he had found Jesus “the only reality that was perfectly trustworthy.”

He said God revealed to Paul that he had to suffer and Paul realized that as Paul detailed his many sufferings throughout his missionary life, it was his weakness and failures that enabled God to work through him.

“There was always someone who was causing him grief,” Father Montalbano said, interjecting that “parish priests can identify with a lot of this,” causing the audience to erupt in laughter.

“He realized that his vocation as an apostle didn’t like in mystical experiences but in his weakness and his suffering. This revelation came during the one and only time he directly addressed Jesus in prayer, echoing Jesus’ prayer to his father in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking Jesus to let the “thorn in his flesh” to be taken away.

“Paul’s weakness and failure emptied him of any illusion of his own success. He realized that divine strength can work in human weakness when surrender to God’s will comes. More than any other New Testament writer, Father Montalbano said, Paul draws out the implications for our lives if we follow Jesus. There is never a life that doesn’t have the cross.”

“And Paul knew that his martyrdom would be his final proclamation and realization of the words, ‘I know him in whom I have believed.’”

The priest said that Paul’s message has been echoed in different words by the last three popes: John Paul I told Cardinal Bernardin Gantin on the last day of his life, “It is Jesus we must present to the world. Outside of this, we have no reason to exist.” Pope John Paul II at his inaugural Mass less than a month later, told listeners in St. Peter’s Square, “Open wide the doors to Christ and you’ll find true life.”

Pope Benedict XVI, at his inaugural Mass in 2005, said that “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing — absolutely nothing — of what makes life free, beautiful and great.”

Sister Sharkey, speaking after Father Montalbano, expressed gratitude for his in-depth reading of Paul’s final reflection on his life in Christ and for his rich insights from some 60 years of studying, teaching and living the Scripture.

“I think it’s obvious,” she said, “that you can call Paul’s words your own: ‘I know him in whom I have believed.’”

She was also grateful, she said, for the opportunity to occupy the endowed chair named in his honor through the generosity of Gayle and Tom Benson.

“The endowed Scripture chair in your name celebrates your legacy and the genuine nature of God’s word. Father Frank, I am honored to walk in your footsteps, to invite others as you’ve done and continue to do, to ponder prayerfully the word of God as well as engage in diligent and disciplined study in order that this effort may serve God’s unfolding plan for our church and our world in this momentous time of peril and promise."