Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has been referred to as the “Monk of Bavaria.” Yes, he was from Bavaria — a southern German state — and a proud Bavarian. Benedict XVI’s love for monasticism and monastics ...

Patrick Henry offers a nuanced interpretation of how monasticism can offer a compelling critique of—and an alternative to—contemporary culture. In contrast to Rod Dreher’s doctrinaire assertion of the ...

When Judith Valente, a Benedictine oblate, leads contemplative retreats both online and in monasteries around the country, she has been noticing that laypeople — whether Catholic or ...

In Washington last week, Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle of Washington solemnly carried out one of the rarer ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church: the formal blessing of a new abbot. He gave his ...

In this age of fake news, information overload and social media stress, we easily lose our sensible selves. We stress out and do, feel, say and think exponentially strange things (see this post for ...

Photo credit to Michael Scanlan H '97. Photos were taken observing prevailing Covid-19 protocols. Friday convocations at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, N.J., often resemble an old-school ...

Monasticism can also seem strange and confusing. In books, museums, and historical buildings, we often come across terms like ‘Benedictine’ and ‘Cistercian’, or ‘Dominican’ and ‘Jesuit’, without ...

While for many students at the University of St. Thomas (UST) in St. Paul, Minnesota, a recent warm September Saturday meant a break from classes, college seminarian Sean Czaplewski and 35 other ...

Residents and staff of Villa St. Benedict are holding a fundraiser for a Benedictine Sisters monastery in Lviv, Ukraine. The independent living, assisted and memory care senior living community in ...

Readers might not think that poverty, chastity and obedience would be attractive to the common Protestant, but Okholm, a theology professor at Azusa Pacific University, will make them think twice.

The monastic alternative, at least in the West, has become so deeply unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility, but there is, at least to me, something deeply appealing about ...