Brother Cos

Brother Cos in his room at the retirement community
of the Xaverian Brothers in Danvers, Mass.

by Steve Neill
of The Catholic Virginian

Brother Cosmas Rubencamp, who served for many years as diocesan director of Campus and Young Adult Ministry, has left Richmond and is living in retirement with his community of the Xaverian Brothers in Danvers, Mass.

Reached by phone on Jan. 2, Brother Cos, as he is best known, said he had left Richmond Dec. 14 after speaking with his community’s superior general and agreeing it would be better for him to live in community while he is receiving treatment for bone cancer which doctors in Richmond diagnosed this past September. Doctors originally thought he suffered from sciatica or spinal stenosis.

“I’m getting chemotherapy and I’m doing well,” Brother Cos told The Catholic Virginian. “There’s no cure but they can treat it so I can live a fairly comfortable life.

“I have difficulty walking any great length and use a cane indoors,” he added. “I’ve lost 30 pounds, but I love it. It’s the easiest 30 pounds I ever lost."

Brother Cos receives a 20-minute procedure or infusion once a month at the Massachusetts General Cancer Center in Danvers, 20 miles north of Boston.

“It’s a great community, there are 24 of us,” Brother Cos said of the Xaverians with whom he now lives. All but two of them are retired.

“We are on the grounds of a large high school—St. John’s Prep which has 1,000 boys,” he said.

Born in Manhattan, Cosmas Rubencamp grew up in New York and went to St. Joseph’s High School in Peabody, Mass., from which he graduated in 1950.

He entered the Xaverian community in 1950 at Old Point Comfort at what eventually became the Redemptorists’ Holy Family Retreat Center in the Phoebus area of Hampton. He taught for five years at two of his community’s high schools, two years in Bangor, Maine, and three years at Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Md.

.Before coming to the Diocese of Richmond in 1971 he was a teacher with the theology department at Georgetown University. At that point he had already received a doctorate in theology from Catholic University of America.

Brother Cosmas retired from his position as head of Campus and Young Adult Ministry in 2002 and was succeeded by Sister Diane Guy. He was coordinator of the diocese’s Haiti Ministry until 2005.

After retiring from the diocese in 2005, Brother Cosmas continued to be involved in ministry to Haiti and worked with the Haiti Committee of Cathedral/St. Bridget’s.

“My last trip to Haiti in March 2013 was my 71st visit,” Brother Cosmas said. In most trips to Haiti he stayed in both Port-au-Prince, the capital, and in Hinche, “depending upon the group I was with,” he added.

“I feel fine,” he said. “In fact, I’m planning to come down to Virginia soon for a fundraising event in Norfolk for La Maison Fortuné Orphanage. He has adjusted well to his new surroundings, but the New England weather is much more rugged than what he knew in Virginia.

“I’m now experiencing my third snow storm since I’ve been here.” Brother Cosmas said Jan. 2. “Carry me back to ole Virginny.”

Brother Cosmas can be reached by email at crubencamp@gmail.com