Religion: Bonfils Monastery

No churchgoer was the late Frederick Gilmer Bonfils, blatant publisher of the Denver Post. To him, Catholicism was occasional newspaper material. To his Catholic Wife Belle and his Catholic Daughter May, however, the solace of the Mass was real. Last week Daughter May (Mrs. Clyde Berryman) gave $150,000 to the diocese of Denver to enlarge and rebuild a Franciscan monastery.

Mrs. Berryman, a matronly blonde who has been estranged from her smart sister Helen because of a court battle over their mother’s estate, is famed in Denver for her gaudy back yard in which the trees are painted white. Simple and austere, however, are the plans by which able Architect Jules Jacques Benous Benedict will transform the exterior of existing red brick Franciscan buildings into Lombard Romanesque, outfit the interiors with a new altar, mosaic and murals, library, dining hall and study rooms for 20 brown-robed monks. Those monks will call their habitation Bonfils Memorial Monastery.