Youthful, global, monastic growth

Stuart Burns, Abbot of the Anglican Benedictine community at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire, has been recovering from mild shock. The shock came when he attended the world Congress of Benedictine and Cistercian Abbots in Rome last September.  At fiftysomething Stuart had seen himself as a young Abbot, but there discovered that he is in the minority of older leaders.

While Benedictine religious houses in the northwest Atlantic are becoming ‘a rare bird’ in the words of Dom Bernardo Olivera, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order, in the majority world six to eight new men’s monastic communities are being founded each year, to say nothing of the women’s, and they are headed up by young men and women.
Notker Wolf OSB, the Abbot Primate of the global Benedictine Order, is a former heavy metal rock star; a man who is interested in people of all cultures and status and is committed to reforming the Benedictine movement. Since his election to office in 2000, he has modelled a radical leadership of pragmatism and humility.

On first arriving at Sant’Anselmo, the Benedictine headquarters and university on the Aventine Hill, he quickly fled to the slums in the narrow streets on the far side of the Tiber.  While making it clear that the work of the academic theologians under his charge at Sant’Anselmo’s University is indispensable, he also declared it was essential for his own wellbeing to play a regular part in working with the slum dwellers – and has done so on a regular basis since.

The Spirit seems to be on the move across the Benedictine-Cistercian world. In his greeting to the Congress Dom Bernardo spoke of two options: one of the Benedictine-Cistercian monastic tradition starting to sing their swan song; the other of monastic re-evangelisation.  He said he committed himself to the latter. ‘In purgatory there are more monks who have sinned through blind fidelity to tradition,’ he declared, ‘than through daring creativity in order to enrich communication in that said tradition.’
Among Notker Wolf’s innovations as Abbot Primate is the formation of a new international monastic community with a special ecumenical interest at St Paul’s Outside the Walls, one of Rome’s few great basilicas; and he charged each community worldwide to send either a monastic to people the community, or a serious financial contribution to uphold it. 

Another of his innovations is the introduction of a ‘school’ bringing novice guardians (coaches of new monastics) from all over the world together for three months to equip them with training that meets the needs of a 21st century monastic community. Br Thomas Quin, novice guardian at Burford Priory will be participating in this year’s course in Rome from March to June.

Gill Poole is team leader for the Church Mission Society’s mission movement local team