Helen Hornbake: Bequest to Endow Fund to Offer Tuition Assistance

Back in the mid-1980s and early ’90s, my late husband Lawrence and I became more and more distressed with the direction some influential educators in the Catholic Church seemed to be heading. The headlines in the Catholic press during those years focused on certain professors at Catholic colleges whose teaching contradicted traditional Catholic doctrine in profound ways.

To say that these professors and certain other Catholic writers negatively impacted our view of the state of the church at that time would be a serious understatement. We were devastated.

Enter Ex Corde Ecclesia, the apostolic constitution issued in 1991 by now Saint John Paul II, when our sons, Larry Jr. and Brendan, were 15 and 14 respectively. That constitution required Catholics teaching at Catholic universities to sign a “mandatum” from their local bishops that they will teach in accordance with Catholic Church doctrine. Unfortunately, at the time, there were only a handful of so-called Catholic colleges and universities that complied.

Among the few schools embracing Ex Corde Ecclesiae at that time in our lives was Franciscan University of Steubenville where our sons eventually enrolled. Ave Maria University, which was not yet established, was another college, later a university, that sought and continues to seek to be faithful to the magisterium of the Catholic Church and the norms of Ex Corde. We felt that financially supporting faithful Catholic universities in our will would enable us to make at least a small difference in our church and in our world.

We were small business entrepreneurs who had admired from afar the many stories about millionaires and multi-millionaires who made Ave Maria University and Franciscan University the orthodox powerhouses they are today. We also realized that our contributions would pale in comparison. Nevertheless, we committed in our will to bequeath $100,000 to each of these universities. At Ave Maria, our gift will be memorialized on the donor plaque at the University’s Rosary Wall.

Our bequest to Ave Maria University is named the Lawrence Eugene and Helen Fritz Hornbake Endowment and will offer tuition help to Catholic students. It is a small contribution but, invested by the universities, that amount will grow and make possible in perpetuity financial assistance to students who will become men and women of virtue and even future saints.