On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a significant step forward was taken in building our global network for the Jubilee via a shared Zoom call. For the first time, Regional Promoters (monks and nuns leading the process) and Coordinators (monks, nuns, or laypeople in support roles) gathered to align on their shared mission: “To animate, connect and support regional contribution to the Benedictine Jubilee 2029, helping monasteries, congregations and Benedictine-inspired comm

On 11 July, the Abbot of Le Barroux established a new dependent priory at Bellefontaine Abbey. Bellefontaine was previously inhabited by a Trappist community that has now left the monastery and made it available to the Benedictines. In a message, Abbot Primate Jeremias Schröder thanked the Trappists for their generosity and emphasised the clear witness of the monks of Le Barroux, who live out their attachment to the traditional liturgy in clear fidelity and obedience to the H

The lockdowns and most of the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic were over, but Benedictine monasteries across the United States were left with a new problem. They could gather in groups inside their monasteries again, but travel and gathering in larger groups with sisters from other monasteries was still not safe, so they needed to hold hybrid meetings, where some participants were face-to-face and others joined by video conferencing. The pandemic made almost all of us

A few months ago, in response to the Jubilee theme "Places of Hope Since 529", I received an email from confreres asking me to write about "hope without hope". They were hoping for a word for those communities whose history is foreseeably coming to an end. And indeed, there are quite a few of them in our Order. The decline of monastic communities is part of history. We know this, of course, but we sometimes push it aside. Recently, I was leafing through the Monasticon Italiae

At the beginning of July 2026 a Benedictine delegation visited several Russian Orthodox monasteries in the greater Moscow area. The programme was organised in cooperation with the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. The journey followed the tradition of Benedictine relations with the Eastern Churches, a mandate given to the oldest monastic order of the Catholic Church by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. The emergence of Benedictine monasticism befo

On July 11, 2026, at the end of his third term as Abbot, Dom Elias Dietz was re-elected Abbot of Gethsemani (USA) for a new six-year term. ocso.org

On July 11, 2026, The Solemnity of Saint Benedict, Sister Beatrice Brady made solemn profession at St Mary’s Abbey of Glencairn (Ireland). Sister Beatrice was born in Cavan (Ireland) in 1995. She entered Glencairn in 2018 and made first profession in 2021. ocso.org

Weston Priory Enters the Swiss-American Congregation. Among the more unconventional monasteries of our Order is Weston Priory in the state of Vermont, located in the part of the USA known as New England. It was founded in 1952 as a dependent house of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem. The visionary founder Abbot Leo von Rudloff OSB, originally a monk of Gerleve (Beuron Congregation), divided his time between the Holy Land and Vermont and eventually settled in America. Weston P

On Saturday 11 July 2026, on the Solemnity of Saint Benedict, monks from Le Barroux will take up residence at Bellefontaine Abbey. • 10.00 am: Solemn Mass celebrated by Dom Louis-Marie de Geyer d’Orth, Abbot of Le Barroux, in the presence of Bishop Emmanuel Delmas of Angers; • around 12.30 pm: buffet open to all; • from 2.30 pm to 4.00 pm: open house for a tour of the cloister; • 4.30 pm: Vespers and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The Trappist monks, who have been here

On July 11, 2026, The Solemnity of Saint Benedict, Brother Dominic Quan made solemn profession at the Our Lady of Joy Abbey (Hong Kong). Brother Dominic was born in Qing Hai, China in 1963. He entered Lantao in 2019 and made first profession in 2020. ocso.org