ROME (CNS): Cistercian Father Michael Casey, an expert on monastic spirituality from Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia, was one of the main speakers at a gathering of Benedictine abbots from around the world.
They met in a monastery atop the Aventine Hill in Rome to discuss what has been happening in their monasteries, how they can work together and how they can reach out to the rest of the world.
The Congress of Abbots of the Benedictine Confederation of Monastic Communities brought 235 abbots, as well as representatives of Benedictine women’s communities, to Rome’s St Anselm Abbey from September 17-25.
The main talks at the congress focused on the viability of Benedictine monasteries, and on balancing the autonomy of Benedictine abbeys with a need for wider co-operation among them.
But the abbots also participated in workshops on issues ranging from ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue to the formation of candidates for monastic life.
Two facts framed much of the discussion: Benedictine abbeys generally are growing in Asia, Africa and South America; while abbeys in Europe, North America and Australia generally have a declining membership.
Fr Casey said that, maintaining tradition while responding to changing needs was an inescapable part of life, both for individuals and for religious communities.
“The fact that we are alive means that we are continually influenced by our past, continually interacting with our present, and looking forward to the future,” he said.
“It’s really just a matter of personal integrity, personal vitality that we do respect and allow our past to continue speaking to us.”
Fr Casey said he would object to labelling “conservative” the young people who were attracted to older forms of Catholic religious life, habits and liturgy.
“People are looking for a clear alternative to the way they were brought up, just as many of the more free-wheeling religious communities are reacting to the tight discipline of their own youth,” he said.
“I sometimes doubt whether the new generation are as conservative as they are sometimes labelled.
“I think what has happened is that they’ve gone up to the attic, they’ve rummaged around and found all sorts of things which they think are good and exciting.
“What they are really doing,” he said, “is rejecting what their parents thought was valuable, and they’ve discovered – with a great sense of adventure – a new way of doing things”, including practices set aside by the previous generation.
“But there isn’t this kind of grim return to the past,” he said.
“It’s a very light and joyful discovery that here’s something that’s been laying, gathering dust for years and it still has a value for us.”
Abbot Peter Novecosky of St Peter’s Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan, just welcomed six candidates to his community of 15 monks.
“For us, six is an unusually high number. I consider that God is blessing us,” he said.
“We lost five members to death in the last two years, so maybe they are sending replacements.”
The abbot said the men, who ranged in age from 19 to 52, would have a six-month candidacy period and then move to a one-year novitiate before first vows.
“They feel a call from God. It’s a response to an awareness of God in their life and wanting to do his will,” the abbot said, adding that the candidates had told him they considered the Benedictine life a “tried and true way of spirituality”.
Abbot Novecosky said the men did not seem to be conservative in any “extreme way”, but they appreciated that members of St Peter’s Abbey wore their habits for the community prayer four times a day and for daily Mass.
They sing the liturgies in English.
“So there is a nugget of truth that those (communities) that don’t keep some of the traditional values and things are not as attractive,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean, though, that you have to go back to things as they were before 1960 or 1950.
“You have to continue to adapt and make life liveable.”
During the congress, the abbots re-elected German Abbot Notker Wolf to a four-year term as abbot primate.
