Introducing the Saint Damien Community at the American College
The Damien Community at the American College came into being at the suggestion of Lieve Boeve, then Dean of Theology and Religious Studies at the KULeuven. His suggestion was made shortly after the USCCB ceased its sponsorship of the American College as an American seminary under its auspices. The university spent a considerable amount of money to renovate the college buildings. Dean Boeve was concerned that the renovated buildings not only serve to provide the university with additional student housing but that they also preserve the memorable legacy of the college itself.
Thus was born the Damien Community at the American College, an institution within an institution. Its patronym is Damien of Molokai, whose mortal remains lie interred just a few hundred yards from the college in the city of Leuven.
The community is a voluntary community of individuals, men and women, clerics, religious, and lay people, who study the “ecclesiastical sciences,” theology, philosophy, or canon law at either the KULeuven or the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-neuve) and live together in the renovated college at Naamsestraat 100, B-3000 Leuven. The students live in a dedicated environment within the college, where they share a loosely structured community life, highlighted by weekly prayer and dinner together on Friday evenings.
A committee composed of faculty members from the two universities and one member designated by officials of the USCCB has responsibility for the college. Daily life at the college falls to a student coordinator, currently Aristel Skrbec. Professor emeritus Raymond Collins (AC ’59) is currently the ACAA’s liaison with the community.
In recent years the number of those participating in the community, including one or two associate members, is in the mid-teens. This web site posting is to help the members of our association get to know them. A short profile of each of them will be posted on the first day of every month. We begin with the current student coordinator, Aristel Skrbec.