Father Wilfrid Weitz; Benedictine Monk

Father Wilfrid Weitz, a founding Benedictine monk of St. Andrew’s Priory in Valyermo, has died at a Mission Hills hospital. He was 79.

Weitz died Sunday of a stroke, said Brother Dominique Guillen.

Born Raymond Weitz in Liege, Belgium, he was raised in England and entered the monastery of St. Andre in 1929. On Jan. 30, 1931, he became a monk and received the name Wilfrid, which he would use for the rest of his life. Five years later, he was ordained a priest and traveled to China where he did missionary work and taught French to Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Weitz eventually returned to Belgium before moving to California in 1957 to live at St. Andrew’s Priory, where he was made choirmaster, librarian, canonist and rubrician. He was responsible for organizing and preserving the monastery’s 25,000-volume library.

Weitz was active as chaplin to Roman Catholic Boy Scouts who came to the monastery on retreat and at various summer camps. For his efforts, he received the Boy Scouts of America St. George Adult Award; it was given to him by the late Cardinal Timothy Manning in 1982.

He is survived by brothers, Bernard Weitz and Francis Weitz of England and Father Thomas Weitz of Loppem, Belgium; and sister, Henrietta Duff of England.

A requiem Mass is to be celebrated at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Andrew’s Priory, 31001 N. Valyermo Road. Burial will follow in the Monastic Cemetery at the monastery. Services are under the direction of Chapel of the Valley Mortuary in Palmdale.