John Baer, Ph.D.
Profile -- (Winter 2001-2002 Newsletter)
John Baer was Father Baer - almost. After eight years in
the Norbertine Order at St. Michael's Abbey in Orange, California,
Baer decided the lay vocation was for him. A teacher, not
a preacher, he would be. But his seminary training turned
out to be, perhaps, the best foundation he could have had
for making him the teacher he would come to be.
One of the fastest growing religious communities in the world,
the Norbertines at St. Michael's Abbey - and its nearby preparatory
school of the same name - have seen a steady stream of traffic
between their institutions and Thomas Aquinas College. Many
students from St. Michael's Prep School become students at
the College.
In turn, many students from the College test vocations at
the Abbey. Two alumni are currently members of the community
there - Brother Sebastian (Alan Walsh, class of '94), and
Brother Juan Diego (Marco Emerson, class of '97) - and one,
Father Francis, O. Praem., (Michael Gloudeman, class of '84)
is an ordained priest there.
And one of their priests, Fr. Michael Perea, O. Praem., is
one of the College's chaplains. Abbot Ladislaus Francis Parker,
O. Praem., received the College's 1997 Thomas Aquinas Medallion
and was the 1999 Baccalaureate Homilist; Fr. Hugh Barbour,
O. Praem., was the 1997 Homilist and delivered the St. Thomas
Day's Lecture last year. ("O. Praem." stands for
"Order of Praemontre," the order of Norbertine Fathers;
the Abbey was founded in 1961 by exiled Norbertines from St.
Michael's Abbey in Csorna, Hungary following the repression
of the Hungarian uprising.)
So it was only fitting that St. Michael's Abbey would produce
someone like Baer who would come to teach at the College.
(Nor does St. Michael's mind that it lost a Baer - it retained
one - his brother, Brother Chrysostom [Anthony Baer], who
is two years away from ordination.)
The third of six children, Baer was born in Inglewood, California,
but was raised for most of his life in Costa Mesa. After eight
years of public elementary school he attended Mater Dei High
School, the largest Catholic high school west of the Mississippi
at the time. There, he was active in Model United Nations
and the speech and debate team, where he advanced to the state
semi-finals competition.
Prompted by the childhood memory of a deceased uncle who
had been a diocesan priest, he thought he would explore a
religious vocation. On graduation from high school he turned
down an offer to attend Georgetown University and, instead,
through the inspiration of a Norbertine priest at Mater Dei,
entered as a postulant at St. Michael's Abbey.
Known for its rigorous educational training, the Abbey arranged
for Baer's subsequent educational development. He studied
two years of philosophy at the Abbey and then two years of
theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in
Rome. He returned to complete a bachelor's degree in classics
at the University of California, Irvine, where he was graduated
magna cum laude, and received Phi Beta Kappa and Eta Sigma
Phi honors.
Because of his proficiency in Latin, he began at the same
time teaching advanced Latin to other novices at the Abbey,
as well as at St. Michael's Prep, where he also taught modern
history. Through this study and teaching experience, he began
to feel a tug outside the Abbey. After one year as a postulant,
one year as a novice, and two three-year terms as a brother,
he decided the lay vocation was for him.
"It was an intense period of spiritual formation,"
he says, "and really defined me as who I am. My whole
intellectual world-view was shaped there and I am forever
indebted to the Abbey for that."
He spent one year working as a district executive for the
Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and then
returned to academia. He enrolled in the graduate School of
Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, where he
could attend to further study of St. Thomas.
Quickly, he earned academic distinction. He was awarded a
Penfield Scholarship and a Centennial Scholarship; he also
won the Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies
Institute. At the same time he worked as an Abstracts Editor
and as Assistant Manager to The Review of Metaphysics. He
reads in six other languages (Latin, Greek, French, German,
Spanish, and Italian).
In 1999, he completed his master's degree in philosophy,
writing his thesis on "The Success of the First Argument
from Motion in Summa Contra Gentiles." He sought to show
that St. Thomas' first argument for the existence of God is
an argument that is part of the science of natural philosophy
rather than of metaphysics.
Other activities kept him busy at Catholic U. He served as
a representative on the Graduate Student Association Senate
and on the School of Philosophy Dean Search Committee. He
helped launch a website to support teaching of undergraduate
philosophy, and was active in a prolife group for graduate
students.
He is expecting to receive his doctorate next year, having
developed his area of specialization in St. Thomas and medieval
philosophy. His dissertation is on the philosophical principle
that the maximum in any genus is the cause of all else in
that genus. It is this principle that St. Thomas uses in his
fourth way for proving God's existence.
Baer explores the historical background of that principle,
in particular, how other scholars have attempted to find a
convergence of Aristotelian and neo-Platonic lines of thought
in St. Thomas. "My aim is to show that a principle that
sounds more Platonic on its surface has more Aristotelian
roots than previously accepted."
Baer's advisor, Msgr. John F. Wippel, is the recent recipient
of the prestigious St. Thomas Aquinas Medal given annually
by the American Catholic Philosophical Association to those
who have made life-time contributions to the thought of St.
Thomas.
The notion of coming to Thomas Aquinas College to teach had
long been at the back of his mind. Through his tenure at St.
Michael's Abbey, of course, he had known of the College. Plus
he had stayed in touch over the years with one of his good
friends from his high school speech and debate team, Marie
(ne‚ Grimley) Pitt-Payne (class of '93).
He also met several other alumni who were pursing graduate
studies at Catholic U. They encouraged him to apply for a
teaching position. He poured over the College's founding document
and applied for a position as Tutor.
This summer, he joined the faculty and is currently teaching
sophomore Latin, freshman laboratory, and junior seminar classes.
"It's been amazing for me to read about an abstract idea
like the Blue Book [the College's founding document] and then
see it applied in concrete circumstances," he said. "There's
a personality to the program - a set of customs - that I couldn't
have anticipated. It's impressive to see how the College has
adapted a medieval - and very Catholic - concept of learning
to modern times."
He's glad to be back in his native Southern California (and
near his beloved Dodgers!). His wife, Theresa, is from Orange
County as well. They met at St. Mary's-by-the-Sea Parish in
Huntington Beach after he left the Abbey and married after
his first year of graduate school. They have two children,
Alan (2+) and Isabel (1).
"When I left St. Michael's, what I missed most was the
intellectual community - so many people to have so many great
conversations with. Now that I'm at the College, I have that
back again; it's wonderful."
He has come to particularly appreciate the seminar method.
"When I taught at Catholic U., I tried to use it there,
but it didn't work very well. I didn't really know the method,
and most of the students really didn't care about learning.
The single most astounding thing I've found about classes
here is that students are reading things because they want
to. And when you have students who want to read and talk about
great works, you can have fantastic discussions.
"In some ways, the method is inefficient, because it's
indirect. But in the long run, you produce a more sound understanding
in the student. Most teachers look for that moment when a
student finally 'gets it.' With the seminar method, you get
to see this in all the classes - students, one-by-one, saying,
'Oh, I get it!' The tangible reward for a teacher is much
more frequent.
Were any other adjustments difficult for him to make since
leaving the Abbey? "I used to do a lot of the cooking
there and people were fond of my cooking. But I learned how
to cook for 40, which is something I've had to unlearn since
I've been married. I keep forgetting that I'm not cooking
for 40 people."
Lessons to unlearn from St. Michael's Abbey - thankfully,
few. The rest are here to stay.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Winter 2002
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