History
Monsignor Bonner was run by the Order of Saint Augustine of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova. It was one of nine Augustinian high schools in North America. [1] Bonner had a storied history with the Augustinians, as those assigned to Bonner resided in the friary behind the school. Monsignor John J. Bonner, the school's namesake, was the Superintendent of Schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1926 to 1945. He is credited with establishing the Philadelphia Catholic League and was one of the best-known Catholic educators in the country.
In September 2005, the Office of Catholic Education of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced an administrative restructuring of Monsignor Bonner High School for Boys and the neighboring Archbishop Prendergast High School for Girls. The schools began operating under one administration beginning on 1 July 2006. Bonner's president was appointed president of the new co-institutional Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast Catholic High School. The principal of neighboring Archbishop Prendergast High School, Mrs. Mary Berner, was named principal of the co-institutional school in January 2006.
The Augustinians in North America
The order's North American foundation happened in 1796 when Irish friars arrived in Philadelphia. Michael Hurley was the first American to join the Order the following year. Friars established schools, universities, and other works throughout the Americas, also including Villanova University in Philadelphia (USA) and Merrimack College (USA). Malvern Preparatory School was founded in 1842 alongside Villanova University. By 1909, two Augustinian houses and a school had been established in Chicago, 1922 in San Diego, by 1925 a school in Ojai and Los Angeles; 1926 a school in Oklahoma; in 1947 a college in Massachusetts; in 1952 Austin Catholic Preparatory School in Detroit, Michigan (closed in 1978); in 1953 this school; 1959 a school in New Jersey, another in Reading (Massachusetts); and in 1962 a school in Illinois.
The Augustinian Friars left campus and removed themselves from the day-to-day activities of the school at the end of the 2008-2009 academic school year. Due to the lack of priests in the Augustinian Order and the expense to the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova, they decided to leave and focus on the remaining parishes, ministries, facilities, and educational institutions they serve. Many of Bonner's friars relocated to nearby Malvern Preparatory School.
Drexel Hill is a neighborhood and census-designated place (CDP) located in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 29,181 at the 2020 census, an increase over 28,043 in 2010, and accounting for over one-third of Upper Darby Township's population.
Villanova University is a private Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine in 1842 and named after Saint Thomas of Villanova. The university is the oldest Catholic university in Pennsylvania and one of two Augustinian institutions of higher learning in the United States.
Malvern Preparatory School, commonly referred to as Malvern Prep, is an independent, all-boys Catholic middle school and college preparatory high school in Malvern, Pennsylvania, within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The school is operated by Order of Saint Augustine and is a member of the Augustinian Secondary Education Association.
Edmond Francis Prendergast was an Irish-born prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the third Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1911 until his death in 1918.
The University of San Agustin – Iloilo, also known as USA or San Ag, is a private Roman Catholic institution in Iloilo City, Philippines. It is operated by the Augustinian Province of Santo Niño de Cebu, Philippines, belonging to the Order of Saint Augustine. Founded in July 1904, it started as a school for boys with 40 students. In 1917, it became Colegio de San Agustin and later achieved university status in March 1953, becoming the first university in Western Visayas and the first Augustinian university in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Philadelphia Catholic League is a high school sports league composed of 18 Catholic High Schools in Philadelphia and the surrounding Pennsylvania suburbs. The league itself was founded in the summer of 1920 on the steps of Villanova academy by Monsignor Bonner. The league originally consisted of three sports, one per season: Football in the fall, Basketball in the winter and Baseball in the spring. This was expanded in 1944 to include Cross-country in the fall, Wrestling in the winter, and Track in the spring.
Thomas of Villanova, OSA, born Tomás García y Martínez, was a Spanish friar of the Order of Saint Augustine who was a noted preacher, ascetic and religious writer of his day. He became an archbishop who was famous for the extent of his care for the poor of his see.
Peter M. Donohue is an American academic administrator and Roman Catholic priest who was inaugurated as Villanova University's 32nd President on September 8, 2006. He had served as the Chair of the Villanova Theatre Department since 1992.
St Augustine's College, Sydney is an independent Roman Catholic single-sex primary and secondary day school for boys, located in Brookvale, on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school caters from approximately 1,200 boys in Year 5 to Year 12 with an education ethos of Augustinian. It was founded by the Priests of the Order of St. Augustine and is situated directly opposite Brookvale Oval.
Villanova College is a high school and middle school in King City, Ontario, Canada. Established by lay educators Paul Paradiso and Grant Purdy with the blessing of the Archdiocese Toronto and in cooperation with the Order of Saint Augustine's friars of Toronto and Marylake Augustinian Monastery. The school campus is within the grounds of this Augustinian monastic foundation in King City. Villanova College offers grades four to twelve and is the first, and only, Canadian institution to become a member of the Augustinian Secondary Education Association. It is a privately operated independent school, officially sponsored by the Augustinian Order.
St Augustine's and Our Lady of Good Counsel College, New Ross, known as "Good Counsel College" by its students and residents of the local area, is an all-boys secondary school in County Wexford, Ireland, which caters for over 850 students. It was founded and is now conducted by the Irish Augustinians. It is one of only two secondary schools in Ireland under the order of the Augustinians, with the other being in Dungarvan, County Waterford. It is the largest school in New Ross. The current principal is Mark O Brien, who assumed the post in 2013, after the principal Fr. John Hennebry O.S.A. took the position of Provincial of the Order of Saint Augustine.
The Order of Saint Augustine, abbreviated OSA, is a religious mendicant order of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1244 by bringing together several eremitical groups in the Tuscany region who were following the Rule of Saint Augustine, written by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century.
Archbishop Prendergast High School was an all-girl Catholic high school in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It has been merged with Monsignor Bonner High School and renamed.
The St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church is a Roman Catholic parish located in the South Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. St. Nicks is one of two remaining ethnically Italian parishes in the South Vicariate, the other being St. Donato's of West Philadelphia. Both parishes give Mass in Italian, as well as English, and consist of a heavily Italian American congregation. The church is located on 9th and Watkins' Streets in South Philadelphia.
Thomas Galberry was an Irish Augustinian friar and the fourth Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, serving from 1876 until his death in 1878.
Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School is located in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania. The school, which is part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was originally two schools on one campus. In February 2012, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that the two schools, Monsignor Bonner, the all boys school and Archbishop Prendergast, the all girls school, would be merged into one building.
Ashley Howard is an American college basketball coach, currently serving as an assistant coach at Villanova University, in his second stint with the program. He was the head men's basketball coach at La Salle University, a position he held from 2018 to 2022.
Austin Catholic Preparatory School was a boys, non–residential, college preparatory Catholic school in Detroit, Michigan. Austin was "one of the city's most widely respected schools." The school was founded in 1951 and operated by the Augustinians. Its first class graduated in 1956. Austin was closed in 1978 due to declining enrollment and a desire by the Augustinians to sell the school's property.
Edmund Joseph Dobbin was a Roman Catholic priest of the Order of Saint Augustine, and 31st president of Villanova University from 1988 to 2006. Raised in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York, he became a noted educator in theology and mathematics, and Villanova's longest-serving president.
Michael Hurley was an American Catholic priest and an Augustinian friar. He served as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Philadelphia for seventeen years, as vicar general of the American province of the Order of Saint Augustine, and as vicar general of the Diocese of Philadelphia.
