Conception college appoints new president

Krista Hall
The Rev. Brendan Moss

CONCEPTION. Mo. — Conception Abbey and Conception Seminary College have announced the appointment of the Rev. Brendan Moss as president rector of the four-year Benedictine college in eastern Nodaway County.

The liberal arts school’s curriculum includes a pre-theology program, and the student body consists of men preparing for the Catholic priesthood.

Moss is a Benedictine monk at the Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Saint Meinrad, Indiana. He will take up his new responsibilities at Conception in August, succeeding the Rev. Samuel Russell, who is retiring after eight years.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Moss graduated from Saint Meinrad College and entered the monastic community there. He professed as a monk in 1996 and was ordained as a priest in 2001.

Moss has a doctorate of ministry in preaching from the Aquinas Institute of Saint Louis and holds a pair of graduate degrees from the Saint Meinrad School of Theology, where he has served since 2006 in a number of capacities, including formation dean, instructor in the permanent diaconate program, and director of the lay degree program.

He also served as the school’s director of enrollment and, outside academia, filled several pastoral assignments.

The president rector is the chief administrator of Conception Seminary College, which is associated with and located on the campus of Conception Abbey, a community of Benedictine monks.

“We are happy to welcome Father Brendan to our educational and formational community,” said the Right Rev. Gregory Polan, abbot of Conception Abbey and chancellor of Conception Seminary College.

“He brings a wealth of experience to his new responsibilities and comes highly recommended both by his own abbot and by those with whom he has collaborated at Saint Meinrad.”