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88 Monks, average age 47: "It is above all the Liturgy in the Gregorian Choir as well as our loyalty to the Pope and the Church's teachings", said P Karl Wallner. Vienna (kath.net/Cross Press) IN the Cistercian Monastery of Heiligenkreuz in the Vienna Wood, the number of Monks has risen to 88, which means a doubling in the last year, and the highest manpower in its almost 900 year history. The average age of the Monks is 47 years. "Such a wave of young people who want to participate in our life hasn't happened since the Middle Ages,' exclaimed P....

Tell Belmont Abbey College: "I'm proud of you!" Help this faithful college resist the culture of death by signing an instant e-card:"I’m proud of you!" Notre Dame betrayed its Catholic identity, but Belmont Abbey College stayed faithful and now needs our urgent prayers and encouragement. Please let me explain:  This small liberal arts college in North Carolina with 1,600 students is holding firm to its Catholic identity by refusing to pay for abortion, contraception and sterilization in its healthcare plan. As a result, this brave college is now facing persecution.  In fact, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)...

While the remains of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and Washington, DC's Pentagon are "ground zero" for the horrible destruction wrought by foreign terrorists, the nation's forests, research labs, resorts and housing developments have long been "ground zero" for domestic environmentally-driven "ecoterrorists." There may be diabolical links between the two forces. There is a strong possibility that Animal Liberation Front (ALF) terrorists have come into possession of Anthrax as the result of having invaded laboratories that have been researching the disease. This certainly merits investigation as a source for the Anthrax attacks. The fact ...

A choir of Cistercian monks is being groomed for chart stardom. Our correspondent discovers how they are coping Within minutes of arriving at the monastery in the Vienna Forest, I see a clutch of men wearing lederhosen, while an oompah band tunes up for the May Day fair. I’m starting to suspect the record company of doing a deal with the Austrian tourist board. As first reported in The Times in March, the Stift Heiligenkreuz monastery is the home of Universal Classics’ latest unlikely stars: the Cistercian monks of the Holy Cross. Already favourites of Pope Benedict, the brothers...

'Lost' coronation abbey unearthed Experts have found the abbey where Robert the Bruce was crowned Archaeologists have unearthed the site where Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scotland. The location of the abbey at Moot Hill, the original home of the Stone of Destiny, was forgotten centuries ago. But it has now been identified by experts from Glasgow University who have been surveying the grounds of Scone Palace for the first time. They used scanners to detect buried structures and found part of the abbey church and a bell tower. The coronation of Pictish and Scottish kings took place...

With its Gothic abbey soaring 170 metres above a mostly flat, nondescript Normandy landscape, Mont-Saint-Michel is both a feat of human will and a quirk of nature, planted in a tidal system that each day brings the sea surging in as fast as a trotting horse. But Mont-Saint-Michel is no longer much of an island. Since the 19th century, a causeway from the mainland has been disrupting the currents that flush away silt, and about 25 hectares of salt marsh are gaining on the islet annually. Now, as much of the world worries how to stop sea levels from rising,...

Mondays really suck. Even if they’re busy, they still manage to be boring. Liberals and government goofs tend to lie low on Mondays, as if they know that conservatives are particularly testy on that day and dangerous to provoke. I hate being bored. I’ve tried most of the more popular sins at least once, so tonight I’m taking a shot at what quite a few Freepers would call Heresy. Introduced for your perusal is a short essay from 1988 by the erstwhile patron saint of environmental extremists, Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang. I say erstwhile as he...

Divorce Trouble Among Details Emerging About Man Who Shot Two Monks, Self at Abbey CONCEPTION, Mo. (AP) - The man who killed two monks and wounded two others at a Roman Catholic abbey before killing himself had been upset with the church over his divorce, The Associated Press learned Wednesday. Investigators had been struggling to find information about 71-year-old Lloyd Robert Jeffress as they searched for a motive in his attack on Conception Abbey, a rural monastery in northwest Missouri. Jeffress' first victim, Brother Damian Larson, pleaded for his life before Jeffress shot him, Abbot Gregory Polan said Wednesday. "He...