1980-1982
Mick Maurer in Pittsburgh, PA
Laval House Prenovitiate, Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost, Bethel Animation Center
Pittsburgh is the second largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Built on the land
between the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers and the surrounding hills, Pittsburgh features a skyline of 151 skyscrapers,
720 bridges, two inclines, and a pre-revolutionary fortification. Residents of the city are called Pittsburghers, though at times affectionately reffered to as
Yinzers.

The first Europeans in what would become Pittsburgh arrived in the 1710s as traders. Michael Bezallion was the first to pen a report on the forks of the
Ohio in 1717. About this same time trading camps boasted the first settlers in the area. In 1749 French soliders from Quebec launched a serious
expedition to the forks in hopes of uniting French Canada with French Louisiana via rivers. 1751 saw the first French fortifications on the forks. The
Pennsylvanians and Virginians had other ideas about the French incursions and sent Virginian George Washington to gather information on the
French buildup in the area in 1753. The future father of America almost drowned to death crossing the ice logged Allegheny River in his service. During
1753–1754 the English hastily built Fort Prince George, but it was too late a large French force had mobilized and took the English hold on the forks of
the Ohio and all western waters without bloodshed in late 1754. The French built a more well planned out Fort Duquesne to control the choke point of
North American trade. These advances led to French and Indian War, and for Pittsburgh resulted in British at first launching a failed mission to capture
the French fort with General Braddock and Colonel George Washington, then a successful campaign led by General John Forbes against the French
at Pittsburgh. After having the French surrender Ft. Duquesne in 1758, he ordered the construction of Fort Pitt, named after British Secretary of State
William Pitt the Elder. He also named the settlement between the rivers "Pittsborough."
Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost is a private Catholic university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded by
members of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, Duquesne  first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the
Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of 40 students and a faculty of seven. The university has since expanded to
over 10,000 students, and is located on a self-contained 47-acre hilltop campus on the "bluff" of downtown Pittsburgh.

Mick Maurer completed one year of post-graduate studies in Gestalt Psychology and Philosophy at Duquesne University
from 1980-1981 while in the Laval House Pre-Novitiate.  Then from the summer of 1981 through 1984 he studied at the
Institute for Formative Sprituality under Rev. Adrian Van Kaam, CSSp at Duquesne University.
A good friend from this time is Robert Mitchell, JD (above Robert Mitchell and Mick Maurer at his wedding in the Duquense University Chapel)
The Congregation of The Holy Ghost (known also as the Congregation of the Holy Ghost under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or in Latin,
Congregatio Sancti Spiritus, C.S.Sp.) is a Roman Catholic congregation of priests, lay brothers, and since Vatican II, lay associates. Congregation members are
known as Spiritans on Continental Europe, and as the Holy Ghost Fathers in English-speaking countries, although even there, they are becoming known as
Spiritans. A Spiritan priest or brother has the abbreviation 'C.S.Sp.' after his name.

The Spiritans were founded in Paris on Whit Sunday 1703 for the purpose of preparing missionaries for the most abandoned souls, whether in Christian or non-
Christian countries by a young, holy ecclesiastic of noble Breton birth and of brilliant talents, a wealthy young Breton lawyer, Claude-François Poullart des Places,
who, three years previously, in the twenty-first year of his age, had given up the bright prospects of a parliamentary lawyer to embrace the ecclesiastical state.
Having opted for the priesthood himself, he wanted to form a religious order for young men who had a vocation to become priests but were too poor to do so. From
the very beginning of his ecclesiastical studies he manifested a particular attraction for lowly and neglected works of charity.

After the French Revolution, only one member, Father Berout, remained. He had survived miraculously, as it were, all of vicissitudes — shipwreck on the way to his
destined mission in French Guiana, enslavement by the Moors, a sojourn in Senegal, where he had been sold to the English, who then ruled there. On his return
to France, after peace was restored to the Church, he re-established the congregation, and continued its work. But it was found impossible to recover adequately
from the disastrous effects of the dispersion caused by the Revolution, and the restored society was threatened with extinction.

In 1848 the Spiritans were joined by a convert Jew, Fr. Francis Libermann, who in 1842 had founded a society dedicated to the Virgin Mary to serve mainly the
emancipated black slaves in the French colonies. Since the object of both societies was the same, the Holy See requested the founder of the new society to merge
with the older Congregation of the Holy Ghost. Ven. Francis Mary Libermann was made first superior general of the united societies, and the whole body became
so impregnated with his spirit and that of his first followers that he is rightly regarded as the renewer of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, then called also "...
under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" after Libermann and his followers joined the Congregation.

The province of the United States, founded in the year 1873, comprised 74 professed fathers, 19 professed scholastics, 30 professed coadjutor brothers. It had
a novitiate and senior scholasticate, at Ferndale, in the Diocese of Hartford, an apostolic college at Cornwells, near Philadelphia. The main object of these
institutions is to train missionnaries for the most abandoned souls, especially ethnic minorities. The province had already established two missions for ethnic
minoriies, one in Philadelphia, the other at Rock Castle, near Richmond, planning to establish more. Moreover, missions for various nationalities were
established in the following dioceses, at the urgent request of the respective bishops: Little Rock, Pittsburg, Detroit, Grand Rapids, La Crosse, Philadelphia,
Providence, and Harrisburg. In all there were twenty-three houses.
The Pre-Novitiate was named for Blessed Jacques Laval, CSSp.
When he died in Mauritius in 1864, there were 40,000 people at his funeral. In the crowds who continually throng to pray at his tomb,
Catholics brush shoulders with Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists. In 1977, the government of Mauritius made 9th September, the
anniversary of his death, a national holiday. April 24th, 1979 is the date of the ceremony of his beatification in Rome. Jacques Laval is
the first Holy Ghost Father to be so honoured.

Jacques was born in Normandy (France) in 1803. His father was a prosperous farmer. His mother died when he was 7, but not before
she had given him striking example of generosity to the poor. In his later missionary work in Mauritius, Jacques was guided by the
formula: "Succeed in having good parents and you will have good children." From his own parents, he inherited a vigorous Christianity
that was direct and daring. As a boy, he said he would like to be a priest or a doctor. In Paris in 1830, he qualified as a doctor.

When he returned to Normandy to set up medical practise, there was a noticeable change in his behaviour. Handsome, successful, a
skilled horseman, he was much in demand at fashionable gatherings. He became immersed in the social scene and abandoned the
practise of his religion. A series of events culminating in a brush with death when he fell from his horse led him to completely
re-examine his life. A few months later, he entered the seminary and within four years he was ordained a priest. After two years as a
parish priest in Normandy, he handed over all his possessions to Francis Libermann, leader of the missionary Society of the Holy Heart
of Mary (which fused with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in 1848) and left for Mauritius.

In Mauritius, the slaves had recently been liberated. Among them Jacques was to spend the last 23 years of his life without ever seeing
his native France again. He immediately set up a Mission for the Blacks. His heart went out to these people, now free but still treated as
inferior. To get to know them, he learned their language. To be like them, he fasted every day and slept on a bed made from a wooden
packing case. He refused to accept the common opinion that regarded them with contempt. He tried to awaken them to their personal
worth by telling them of God's great love for each of them. He made considerable demands on them. He tested them and then he
trusted them. He gave them responsibility for the animation and instruction of small groups. What started in the city of Port Louis spread
across the island. A new enthusiasm for the Church was underway.

As a doctor, Jacques was known as a friend of the poor. At the seminary, he became a man of prayer. Now he had become one of the
poor. In long hours of prayer, God came close to him. He guided and strengthened him, He gave him the courage to continue to trust the
people and so become the "Apostle of Mauritius".
Bethel Animation Center

Home for the USA East Province of the
Spiritans.  It serves as a retreathouse,
retirement center for aged Spiritans, and
the provincal offices for the USA-East.
Art Rooney owner of the Steelers in 1984
Terry Bradshaw