Showing posts with label Benedictine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benedictine. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Christendom and "Leitkultur"



Klosterneuburg Abbey near Vienna looks back on 900 years of tradition. Its huge dome bears the imperial crown with the cross.
By Wolfram Schrems
Sometimes there is discussion about what constitutes Europe and what it is based on. The discussion then comes to the "influence" of Christianity, to the "three hills" Golgotha, Acropolis and Capitol and to the "Leitkultur." But all of that is idle. We would simply not exist as peoples and as individuals without the work of the Catholic Church.
A few basic thoughts on this topic from an Austrian perspective:
During the land grabbing by so-called “refugees” in autumn 2015, I spoke to a Hungarian diplomat about the role of Christianity in the development of the peoples of Europe. I hypothesized that without Christianity the Hungarians would have remained a primitive and predatory nomadic people. The answer of my interlocutor surprised me, but in retrospect it turns out to be smarter than my only half-thought. He said: Without Christianity, there would be no Hungarians at all, they would have disappeared from history.
Obviously, the historically conscious Hungarian had recognized something that underpins the radar of today's everyday consciousness. However, nowadays there is not only a certain sluggishness in perceiving (and pronouncing) natural things but also a kind of censorship:
The question of how Christianity is the "foundation" of Austria and Europe is sometimes raised. However, the discussion is not very knowledgeable. This is also the case because even Church leaders refuse to use the expression "Christian West" and prevent any meaningful discussion, at least in the area of ​​the Church. Therefore, if you actually come to this question among Catholics with a contemporary spirit, you will encounter mute ignorance.


The orb
The orb, the world dominated by the cross of Christ
The thesis of this essay is based on the diplomat's conviction: Without the motivating power of the Catholic faith, there would be no European civilization, and consequently no European peoples. There would not be "us" as individuals because our ancestors would not have been created. There would not be "us" as a nation because without faith there would not have been sufficient cohesion and self-assertion.
Because Catholics, and especially monasticism, which is a more intensive realization of the faith, created the structures on which our culture and our existence as European peoples are based, amid immense sacrifices. We still draw on what is left. Catholic Christianity is thus not only a “contribution” to European civilization among others, but also the reason for it and the actual foundation.
So to the individual points to support this thesis:

Monasteries as structure-building centers

The existence of the monasteries in this country has become so self-evident to many that they stop thinking about their origin and meaning. At most, some people come across their “wealth”. But there is no further thought here: the monasteries are "rich" because generations of monks have labored without pay and have accomplished enormous work to feed and afford modest accomodation for the poor. These range from pioneering activities such as clearing and building, to agriculture, to welfare, science, medicine, fine arts and music. The monastery school and hospital are Catholic inventions. They are an answer to Christ's judgment speech, the main sentence of which is: What you do to the least of my brothers, you did to me.
After all, the knights of the monks contained Islamic aggression for several centuries and made the development of Christian Europe possible in the first place.
Another fact is considered by many too little:

Work as a source of added value

The Benedictine Ora et Labora made the call to work culture-defining. If you don't want to work, you shouldn't eat, as the Apostle Paul says, and: The thief should no longer steal, but work and earn something with his hands so that he can give it to the needy.
This access to work has created solid and lasting economic structures, including welfare work (poor relief). This approach differs from an economy that is based on usury, begging, extortion or caravan robbery and therefore neither produces anything nor creates jobs nor cares for the needy, on the contrary, it produces them.
As is well known, Greek and Roman paganism despised physical labor and therefore kept slaves. Islam also has this attitude. But Christianity strives to sanctify work, even the “low” work, and itself through work. The Benedictine rule prescribes physical work and nobody has to be too good for it.
Under early medieval conditions, this can be understood as a social upheaval towards the positive.
There is something else associated with permanent work:

Stabilitas loci: prerequisite for stability

Benedictine monasticism usually implies (usually) lifelong ties to a particular monastery. It differs from the missionary work of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish traveling monks and from the mendicant orders founded in the 13th century. We also owe a lot to both groups in Europe. The focus here should be this: The stabilitas loci was a haven and anchoring during the time of the migration of the peoples. It was an alternative lifestyle - and of course it is also at a time that “migration” celebrates as a value in itself.
Beyond the life of the individual monk, the monasteries achieved tremendous temporal continuities. This fact is also little anchored in the collective consciousness: Even relatively short-lived monasteries, e.g. those that fell victim to the Josephine monastery storm [When Freemason Emperor, Joseph II looted the monasteries and "put everyone to work"] in this country, worked over a period of time that affected all current political continuities, far outshines the existence of the Republic, the EU, and the USA among other things. The Gaming Charterhouse may serve as an example, having only run as a monastery for over four hundred years. That is more than five times as long as the existence of the second Austrian republic.
Incidentally, in the 14th century, the building was so solid that all of the parts of the former monastery are still usable in Gaming - only to illustrate the contrast to the "modern" design. (And because we are talking about the continuities: When Gaming was founded, the Benedictine monastery Kremsmünster had already stood about six hundred years, but one normally does not think about it and it is not subject to the opinion published in the [!].. Fake news media. )
The continuity and reliability of the monasteries therefore contributed as crystallization points to the formation of cultural and political continuities.
This is related to the following:

Education: theology and tradition of ancient culture

The monasteries were and are places of education. The complete Benedictine imperative is yes: Ora et labora et legeAny accusation of “hostility to science” against the Catholic faith is absurd given the facts. Theology also holds the building of science together as the keystone, illuminates the naturally recognizable reality with supernatural light and prevents science-drivers from misusing their knowledge, as does a Promethean, even satanic alchemy and magic.
Within this framework, science was able to develop in the service of human needs. Just think of the life-saving monastic medicine. 
For our question about the foundation of European culture, it is also important to see that the best of ancient wisdom about the monasteries has come to us. According to the Catholic faith, everything true, good and beautiful has a part in the eternal Logos and comes from it. The Gospel of John says that "in the beginning", in principio , ie "in principle", was the Logos, the word, the meaning, the understanding, not the absurd.
References to logos can be found in ancient thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. Based on its own traders, ancient philosophy, which de facto hardly shaped the political life and culture of their contemporaries, would have disappeared without a trace. One must not believe that a Plato has met with great interest on a social scale. The circle of the academy was too small. Plato was unsuccessful politically. His dialogues would have been lost. But it was the monks who copied the testimonies of ancient wisdom and therefore preserved them and made them fruitful for Christian philosophy and theology, and thus for the development of culture.
It is therefore obvious that Athens and Rome, i.e. the Acropolis and the Capitol, the two “hills” next to Golgotha ​​(after a dictum by the German Federal President Theodor Heuss), have shaped Europe only because the Church has the best of them, Philosophy and jurisprudence. The three hills are not "equal", if you want to put it that way, because they are not equally effective in history.
Ancient thinkers, state theorists and lawyers then found their place within the framework of the revealed faith. Of course, this does not reach that of the bearer of the express revelation, so it is not a scripture, but it must not be despised either.

summary

The motivation of the monk, like any other Catholic, is not to provide cultural achievements as an end in itself, but to give glory to God and to attain eternal life. This can only be reached via a steep and narrow path. The above-mentioned tangible and intangible assets were then created through indirect profitability. The instruction of the Sermon on the Mount came true on a large scale: First look for the Kingdom of God, everything else will be added to you. This allowed a true “culture” to emerge from colere : cultivate, maintain, refine, cultivate and worship the true God. The villages and towns grew around the churches and monasteries. What held the communities together was the common belief.
At the same time, the peoples gained their profile. As is well known in the missio of Christ, he says: Make all nations my disciples. Not only the individuals, but the peoples as a whole should implement the teaching of Christ. This practically made the Church the inventor of “ethnopluralism”, if you put it that way. Obviously, the uniform Latin liturgical and scientific language was no obstacle to the development of the national peculiarities within Christianity. Thus, Germans, French, English, Poles, Croats, Hungarians and all others were united to Christian peoples, in the Church under the Roman Pope and through the Latin language in an uncomplicated understanding.
The content of the Catholic faith proved to be plausible in its action, the moral regulations as beneficial, the central imperative of love for God and neighbor as liberating. Faith opened meaning and peace of conscience and let its confessors come to terms with it. The horror of paganism with its idols and human sacrifices disappeared.
Paradisiacal conditions were neither attained nor sought because the Church faith precludes any conception of such conditions on earth. The alleged “consolation” to the hereafter has proven to be a real consolation for the people of the Migration Period and the “Middle Ages” and has led to the aforementioned cultural achievements.
It is therefore irrelevant whether the present thoughts may be perceived as "romantic" or "idealizing": we are there as individuals and as a nation only because of this and can only look back on 1500 years of Catholic culture in our homeland because our ancestors were creators of life-promoting and community-building structures. We are there because countless of our ancestors have received medical help in Catholic hospitals and orphanages and have therefore been able to stay alive longer and start a family. Circumstances, as they were, led to the generation of our ancestors, from whom we descended.
We should always be aware of this.
If the Church had not gained a foothold in Europe, Europe would have remained a meaningless Eurasian peninsula. No peoples would have developed that were worthy of historiography. A conglomerate of descendants from ever-invading and massacre pagan hordes could not have enabled national continuity, cultural and human development.
So the Hungarian diplomat was right.
At a time when churches and monasteries are often little more than empty shells due to the apostasy of hierarchies and devotees, the destruction of faith will also entail the destruction of the cultures and peoples that have arisen from it. In Fatima it was said that peoples who do not convert will disappear from the face of the earth. Well, as you can see, it doesn't require atomic bombs.
Text: MMag. Wolfram Schrems, Vienna
  • (This essay is the revised version of an article that first appeared in the Attersee Report , the publication of the Attersee Circle within the Freedom Party of Austria , No. 21, 2019, p. 14. It is a pleasant surprise that it appears in the FPÖ gives those responsible who are at least interested in Catholic positions and who always offer a platform to an articulating author of this kind. WS)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Monday, April 17, 2017

Benedictine University Hosts Aberrosexual Play

Edit: Collegeville has one of the largest concentrations of unpunished sexual predators in the world. Is it any wonder that it's also one of the centers behind promoting the normalization of deviancy and thought crimes legislation that would punish anyone who challenges it?

This supposed Catholic, Benedictine institution, ( the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University) is hosting an evil play called "Stop Kiss" promoting sodomy. (They already host a play that promotes pederasty called the Vagina Monologues.)  Are there any readers who are alums? Please reconsider supporting this nexus of evil and hypocrisy if you are.  This is a review of the play, as it appeared:

People are people. Love is love. That’s where it should end. No matter a person’s sex, gender or sexual orientation, each individual deserves respect and dignity.
This is one of the main messages that comes to life on stage in the CSB/SJU Theater Department’s adaptation of “Stop Kiss” by Diana Son.
The Director for the play is Kaarin Johnston. The two lead roles are played by CSB senior Beth Cassidy (Callie) and CSB junior Breana Burggraff (Sara).
 http://csbsjurecord.com/2017/04/stop-kiss-takes-inclusive-stance-on-love/#more-12460

AMDG


Friday, March 17, 2017

A Jesuit Heretic's Heresy Disected by Benedictine

[HughOSB] As part of our Lenten penance, we are listening to James Martin SJ’s Jesus: A Pilgrimage in the refectory at lunch. It has been not too bad, the bits I have heard; until today. So many blasts from the past: Jesus “discovering” his “call”, “embracing his vocation” as at the wedding feast at Cana. It was the same old tired Christology-from-below (to put it at its best) that triumphed in the 70s and 80s. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
But then it turned a great deal worse, in one brief phrase: Martin referred to Jesus as “a fully human person”. It is a sad indictment of the last 50 years or more of deficient catechetics that any will not see the problem. Jesus is a man, isn’t he?
Indeed Jesus is human. However, he is not a human person. He is a divine person with a human nature. The heresy of Nestorius(†450) was a rational attempt to reconcile the humanity of Christ with the awesomeness of his divinity. His sticking point was Mary; he objected to her being called Mother of God, because God, by definition eternal and the first principle of existence—the uncreated Creator— could obviously have no mother. So he decided that Jesus must be a union of two persons, one divine and one human. Mary was mother of the human person, but not of the divine. So she could be called Mother of Christ, but not Mother of God.
https://hughosb.com/2017/03/16/there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun-james-martin-sj-and-christology-101/#more-11225
AMDG

Monday, January 14, 2013

French Abbey to be Resettled by Monks from Fontgambault

ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam
(Wisque)  The Abbey of St. Paul, belonging to the Congregation of Solemes in the 300 population village of Wisque (about 200 km West of Brussels) will be settled by monks from the traditional Abbey of Fontgambault in central France.  This was reported by the website of Wisques Abbey.

The Abbey was founded by monks from the Abbey of Solesmes in 1889 and had at the time, 60 monks.  Yet in the last years, the number of new entrants had stopped and then many monks died,  then the Abbey was about to close.  A similar fate in the Diocese of Arras befell the Cistercian Abbey of Belval.

Since the 7th of January there are 4 monks from the Abbey of Fontgambault in Wisque,  so that they can say the traditional Office as well as support their practical concerns.  The Abbey operates its own ceramic atelier (art studio).

Several new monks are expected from Fontgambault at the end of the year.

Source... Katholisches...





Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Trappist Nuns In Syria Do Not Fear Fate of Trappists in Algeria

(Damascus)  They came to the near East in 2005 with the intention to live out the Christianization of the first centuries after Christ.   Their history is comparable to the Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, who in 1996 were murdered by a moderate Islamic group.  Xavier Beauvaus created a memorial for them and their martyrdom by the film "Of Men and Gods".

The comparison is more pressing when one things of the five Trappists, who left their peaceful and isolated Cloister in Valserena in Tuscany, Italy, in order to go to Syria.  A land whose internal situation had been already tense and in the midst of a civil war with thousands of deaths and flooded with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Why have they decided to found a new Cloister in an unstable country like Syria?  "Because Christianity had developed here and spread from here to Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Armenia, India and China", say the sisters.  "in the first centuries the mission was led by a living Monastic movement, which existed alone and independently of one another here and in Egypt."  The sisters recall St. Ephraem the Syrian, Saint Simeon the Stylite, St. John Chrysostom or St. John of Damascus, whose traces they follow.  "Going out from our Latin and Benedictine Tradition we want to follow the stream, because we are convinced of the rich fruits, which will come about in an exchange between the West and Eastern heritage of Christendom."


So the Cloister of Azeir exists amidst the civil war afflicted cities of Homs and Tartous in Central Asia. The sisters feel a mission in that, which resembles that of the monks of Tibhirine:  to help Christians and Muslims without respect to religion, to be a lighthouse of peace and harmony in the civil war,  which they did not foresee when the five Trappists set foot for the first time on Syrian soil. "Now we belong to these people.  The fate of the Syrians is our fate,"  says Abbess Monica to AsiaNews.

The nuns reported on their internet site established and independent of all propaganda of one of the other sides of the civil war and the fate of Syria's Christians.   Some of the letters of the last months could have been called out.  They described for everyone the suffering of the civilian population.  For them the Cloister is clearly a sign of hope, because it is "a place, where God is really present through the Eucharist and through the Church, through the prayer and the brotherly community.  It is a blessing for all."

"Why should we go away?" was the astonished response of the sisters.  "The people here ring our door.  They seek help, diverse help.   They ask for food, they seek consolation, young men have started to come to us, because they are seeking someone to help them to understand things, to reflect, to grow innerly."  The Cloister offers already numerous people sanctuary and accommodation, people, who are have been made refugees by government troops or the rebels, people who are pursued by one side or the other.  Even as a place for secret business, the Cloister is on hand.

"We are called to give a witness of our Christian hohpe, which is stronger than all worry.  Why should we go away from a place, where the people so desperately need this hope",  said the Abbess to Asia News.

Text: Religion en libertad/Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Valserena

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

SSPX Announces New Seminary Planned in USA in the Style of Cluny

(Winona) A few days ago the Society of St. Pius X presented a project to build a new Seminary in the USA.  The St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary will be set up in Buckingham County in the state of Virginia. The new construction has become necessary because of the current shortage of space in the current structure.  The new seminary will offer room for 135 seminarians, to incorporate even room for the faculty and a guest house for lectures, seminars and priestly ordinations.   The internet site advertises  the New Seminary Project, it also  shows the two month old periodical Ad Orientem and a video about its progress.

The current priestly seminary in Winona was established in 1981, in order to provide for the education of interns of the north American Society.  The number of candidates became so large in the course of time that new solutions for the amount of space had to be found.  The existing seminary has a capacity for about 75 people, with a full compliment of seminarians and professors it runs to more than 100.  The orderly operation of a seminary is affected with a corresponding tightness.  For various reasons the purchase of a used ecclesiastical installation was impractical, so a new structure was decided upon.

As an essential element for the creation of an actual space for priestly formation a rural, peaceful area was sought for the seminary.  The plans and the computer model of the project is available on the internet.  The architecture of the seminary complex is based on the sober severity of the Benedictine reform movement of Cluny, as Francesco Colafemmina of Fides et Forma noted. The total cost is estimated at about 40 million dollars.

The buildings of the current seminary in Winona is being planned to serve as a school after the completion of the new seminary.  If the building proceeds as planned for the first phase of building, the move to the new seminary is planned for autumn 2014.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: New Seminary Project
Translation English: Tancred



Link to katholisches...

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Allegations of Police Corruption at Benedictine University

Edit: there's more going on at Collegeville lately.   A University employee has admitted to a criminal act, but the local law enforcement officials refuse to investigate any further.  Meanwhile, the target of a threat lives in fear for their safety.

This event gives some further credence to claims that County officials were deliberately incompetent in their investigation of the disappearance of Josh Guimond in 2002.

What's happening can only be described as Kafkaesque.

Gagliadi Only Sees Evil Abroad

[Eponymous Flower]  Collegeville is a small town which includes the decadent Old Liberal Monastery of St. John's Abbey and has a population of approximately 3,000.

Some may recall that football's most winning football coach, John Gagliardi, had hypocritically commented on the Sandusky scandal, ignoring the substantially more significant problem in his own back yard.

 Despite admitting that he himself has had knowledge about predatory Monks at the Modernist Abbey of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville Minnesota, he did not know “if there was enough punishment in the world for a guy like that" when it came to a softball interview for the national news at the St. Cloud Times.

It's easy to be brave at times like that. Yet this was his statement in view of Penn State's Jerry Sandusky, who was accused of 50 allegations of sexual misconduct.

Gagliardi has been in close proximity to over 16 credibly accused homosexual perpetrators who preyed on students for as long as he's been coaching at St. John's. As the Pine Curtain notes, they taught at the schools where Gagliardi's children were schooled, and one of them even drove the bus for Gagliardi's football team. Impossible not to know, and what if they'd molested one of his children? There is no comment.

Perhaps some level (a very feeble level), of professional loyalty is in play here, as we pointed out before. Surely, Gagliaridi has a certain responsibility to his employer St. John's University, but at what point does the institution to which you belong become so morally compromised, dishonest and corrupt that it tarnishes your reputation as well?

SJU Employee Terrorizes Alum

It's easy to make brave statements about how "shocked" you are at sexual abuse when someone else is at fault, it's almost as easy as making criminal and terroristic threats on Facebook, and almost as easy as getting away with it because your grand father is the football coach.

Normally, such transgressions would result in termination from a job, some jail time and possibly community service, but this is St. John's Abbey of Modernism we're talking about here.

Corruption in Local Law Enforcement?

In any cease, such observations were likely to arouse profound anger and hatred on the part of Gagliardi's family members. Recently, John Gagliardi's grandson, Johnny Gagliardi, admitted to making a threat on the Facebook page of a person who had made a point of posting about John Gagliardi's possible complicity in the sexual abuse at St. John's Abbey and University. Despite the fact that the target was concerned for their safety during a visit to the campus where the perpetrator worked in "Life Services", local law enforcement and the prosecutor have decided not to investigate the case. Pine Curtain writes:

On February 3, 2012, however, Stearns County Sheriff’s Department Captain Pam Jensen called the target to report that her office had decided to close the matter. Remarkably, she told the target that the suspect was still “angry.” [Incredibly, implying that the target is actually at fault]

On February 3, 2012, the target of the threat sent an email to Stearns County Sheriff’s Department Captain Pam Jensen, cc’ing Stearns County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant Jon Lentz, Stearns County Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Danial Winkels, and Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall.

The target explained that he felt the threat was real and that the suspect’s “reference to ‘what is coming’ is worrisome, given his and his family’s influence and connections.” He wrote, “it is important that my (and my family’s safety never be in question, whether in my own home and community or on future visits to my alma-mater. That is not currently the case.”
[Note: Less than a month earlier, a member of the suspect's family was made aware that the target was planning to visit the area in early February.]

If the local authorities have dismissed any further investigation into the case, it is very likely the result of a conflict of interest. The Pine Curtain Writes:

The February 3, 2012 request for an independent prosecutor was denied. This request was made because:

1) Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall’s children attend Saint John’s Preparatory School.


2) Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall’s husband, John Kendall, is currently listed as a faculty member at Saint John’s University.

3) Janelle and John Kendall give money to the Saint John’s University Annual Fund.

4) Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner and at least one of his sons reportedly attended Saint John’s University.

5) Sheriff John Sanner has been a fixture on the sidelines at Saint John’s University football games.

Read further at Pine Curtain... 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Ancient Siegburg Monastery Swamped by Swarms of Bargain Hunters


Edit: bargain hunters (locusts) swarmed the monastery, took everything and left a pittance behind.  Consecrated items may NOT be sold, so the monk in charge allowed the throng to take what they wanted in return for a good-will offering... what ensued was a disgrace.


 Clearance sale in the moribund Benedictine Monastery of Siegburg: The bargain hunters have nearly broken down the doors.

(kreuz.net) About 700 interested -- above all flee market sellers and other salesmen from alll of the North Rhein - Westphalia area stormed the Abbey flee market in Siegburg on Sunday afternoon on the 15th of April.

This was according to the online edition of Bonn's 'General-Anzeiger'.


Giant Rush


The flee market was supposed to have begun at 11:00.  Actually a newspaper gave 10:00 as the start.

Thus, the doors were opened a half-hour earlier.

The rush was so largeg, that visitors had to be rejected.

"Carlesss Pushing and Shoving"

705  objects were up for sale -- from spoons to religious oil paintings.  In less than ten minutes, everything was gone.

300 crucifixes were dragged away in crates.  A loud argument broke out around a single picture.

The 'General-Anzeiger'  spoke of a "carless pushing and shoving".

Someone tore a crucifix from the hand of an eight year old boy.

Covers from the tables were torn off, which weren't even set up for sale.

Everything for a donation


The event didn't quite follow the prescriptions of canon law.

This reads that religious objects, which are not to be used any longer are either destroyed or must be given for private use.

A sale of objects is not allowed.  For that reason, a donation is asked.

4067 Euro all together came from that.  They should flow into the retirement fund of the former Siegburger monks.

Like a Closeout Sale


The flee market was directed by Brother Linus (27).  He has the task of liquidating the Abbey.

His commentary:  "People came around like at a closeout sale at the Galeria Mall."

After this experience, Brother Linus wants to organize the book market planned for June "completely differently".

There are about 60,000 books.

Link to original...

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Fontgambault: Holy Father Loves Traditional Benedictines

As Pope Bendict XVI. saw the new Abbot and his predecessor a few months ago, he shouted out: "Fontgambault!"

The Traditional Benedictine Abbey of Fontambault is located by a 270 population village of the same name in the Departement of Indre in central France.

It has a stormy development behind it.

With the Old Faith, it Survived the Conciliar Collapse

In 1948, 22 monks from the Abbey of Solesmes setted from Fontgambault.

Today with over a hundred monks it is one of the largest cloisters of the Congregation.  Since 1971 -- in the midst of the Conciliar night -- the cloister formed four new foundations.

On October 7th the new director of the cloister, Abbot Jean Pateau was consecrated.

Meeting with the Pope

On the 9th of March the website 'riposte-catholique.fr' reported some recent events at the cloister.

The webiste reported that the new Abbot and his predecessor, Abbot Antoine Forgeot, had travelled to Rome on November 23rd.

They were even invited by Pope Benedict XVI.  The meeting was not known about until today.

As soon as the Holy Father saw the two monks, he called out:  "Fontgambaul!"

The Pope enjoined the new Abbot, to hold fast to the line of his predecessors.

He had militated very strenuously against introducing any kind of concelebration.

Falling Back From the High Level

According to reports from 'riposte-catholique.fr' vocations are also not falling back.

In the last year they haven't had any entrants.

Recently there were five monks in the Novitiate.

Last August two monks had made their simple and another monk made his solemn vows.

Presently, the Cloister is expecting numerous new entrants in the near future.