Father Lawrence Kratz, a founding member of our community, died at St. William’s Nursing Home, Milbank, South Dakota on July 10, 2000 at 11:00 p.m. He had been a resident there for the past year and a half.  Fr Lawrence was born on December 7, 1912 in Evansville, Indiana.  At the age of 34, he entered the novitiate at St. Meinrad’s Archabbey, and professed vows on August 1, 1947.  He was ordained to the priesthood at St. Meinrad on May 3, 1952.  Fr Lawrence was a convert to Catholicism.  He often repeated the story about his Lutheran grandmother’s introduction to Archabbot Ignatius Esser on her first visit to St. Meinrad’s.  She admired his pectoral cross, and asked where she might procure one like it for her grandson.  

In his youth, Fr Lawrence joined an archeological expedition to the Yucatan.  This experience formed his enduring love for the lands and peoples south of our border.  He located the site for our foundation in Guatemala, and helped get it off the ground before answering a request to assist the St. Meinrad monks with their apostolate in Peru. Fr Lawrence spent a good number of years in pastoral work in a Lima barrio.  Before either of these assignments, he had assisted the monks from St. Joseph Abbey, Louisiana, at Guatemala’s national shrine in Esquipulas.

 During the construction era at Blue Cloud Abbey, Fr Lawrence was in charge of the appeal office here.  A benefactor once told him that he had the “ability to charm the birds out of the trees.”  He did indeed have a way that endeared him to people.  He was a good-natured man.  When he returned to this country, Fr Lawrence spent several summers in the Red River Valley ministering to the Mexican-American migrants who labored in the sugar beet fields of North Dakota and Minnesota.  His Spanish-speaking parishioners called him “Padrecito.”  So did many of his monastic confreres.  And there are four young men who called him “Grandpa.”  When Fr Lawrence was in Peru he was the  friend of a family whose son he brought to this country to study.  Gustavo stayed here and married.  Fr Lawrence was very proud of Gustavo and Susan’s four sons.  One of them once baffled a playmate by telling him, “Our grandpa is coming to see us.  He’s a priest.”    

Fr Lawrence’s last assignment was in Watertown, South Dakota, where he was chaplain for the Benedictine Sisters at Mother of God Monastery.  During this time, his health began failing.  For the past year, Fr Lawrence was often confused, and sometimes he appeared not to recognize his own confreres.  At last, all has been made clear for him.  Fr Lawrence’s funeral was on July 13^th.  We ask the members of the Swiss-American Congregation, and other Benedictines to remember him in their prayers.