Abbot Patrick Mary O'Brien, OSBAbbot Ernest died on 9 July 1937. His successor Abbot Patrick M. O’Brien was elected the fourth abbot of St. Mary’s on the second ballot on 11 August 1937. At the time he was pastor of St. Joseph’s in Maplewood. At his doctor’s recommendation (and he always followed his doctor’s recommendations), he had been excused from the election chapter and was convalescing in Glens Falls, New York when notified of the choice. His good friend, now Archbishop,Thomas Joseph Walsh of Newark, was with him when the news came and urged him to accept the election as God’s will.
A native of Manchester, New Hampshire, Edward Raphael O’Brien was born on 29 October 1885, the eldest of eight children, seven boys and one girl. His parents had emigrated from Tralee in County Kerry, Ireland. He attended St. Raphael’s School under the direction of the Benedictine Sisters. He continued at St. Joseph’s Cathedral High School and completed his last two years of high school at St. Anselm, graduating in June 1905. His school years were marked by poor health which he continued to experience after matriculation at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
After an interruption of his studies for several years caring for his health, he entered St. Anselm College, but ill health again forced him to drop out. After a stint of teaching at St. Joseph School, in Manchester he entered the novitiate for St. Mary’s Abbey at St. Vincent Archabbey in June 1914 at the age of twenty-eight, taking the name Patrick Mary. After simple vows he returned to St. Anselm to complete college and study theology. He was ordained to the priesthood on 29 May 1920.
From 1920 until 1933 Father Patrick taught Algebra and French at St. Benedict’s Prep School in Newark and received his Master of Arts degree in French from The College of the Holy Cross in 1924. In addition to his teaching duties, Father Patrick served as chaplain to the Newark Alms House and the Newark Convalescent Hospital for six years, where his kindness and charity made his name a byword among the needy poor of the city. Despite his continued delicate health, he was appointed pastor of St. Joseph’s in Maplewood in 1933.
Shortly after his election, Abbot Patrick, confronted the opinion of those in favor of selling Delbarton in a lengthy manifesto regarding the “Delbarton Situation.” He put his statement in writing, as he said, “Because I want my position to be emphasized and perpetuated.” Indeed was a forceful expression of the policy that he would follow for the next thirty years as abbot. He argued the community’s need for the Delbarton estate and informed the chapter of his determination to fulfill the dream of his predecessor to develope the Morristown property. He stated his firm conviction that Delbarton was vital for the community; that it provided a place for the expansion; that the city was not an appropriate place for a novitiate or the formation and education of young monks; that monks required a place of spiritual refreshment not afforded by the pressures of urban life; that it would be a place of rest in the “golden years.”
Abbot Patrick also asserted the potential of Delbarton for the founding of a school “when, because of parochial schools or a Catholic community school, St. Benedict’s Prep would no longer have any purpose.” The abbot pleaded that the community not repeat what he called the mistakes of the past in disposing of property in the city and in Denville. Finally, he assured those who desired the sale of Delbarton for fear that they would be assigned there, that “[s]till there never will be time when we shall be forced to live at Delbarton, unless necessity requires it.”
No record of the reaction of the Chapter remains. Some might have seen it as the assertion of unproven facts and an appeal to a history that existed only in Abbot Patrick’s imagination, but it left no doubt about his intentions for the future. The impact must have been powerful for, within less than a month, the Chapter would approve the first step in the implementation of Abbot Patrick’s’ policy.