Free Republic

The old liberals command the Church is increasingly without reservation. But the boring mush they produce doesn't attract anyone any more. [kreuz.net] "The Cloister, which young people today are drawn to, is something which the most traditional societies offer." Trappist, Father Guillaume Jedrzejczak explained on July 2nd, to the article appearing in the Catholic daily 'La Croix'. Father Jedrzejczak is the former Abbot of the French Trappist Abbey Mont-des-Cats.

Children were "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in Pope Benedict's native Bavaria, according to a new report commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church. World A lawyer investigating accusations of abuse in a Benedictine monastery school in Ettal presented a final report to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising Monday, including 173 pages of victims' accounts of abuse. "My investigations quite clearly show that for decades up until around 1990, children and adolescents were brutally abused in the Ettal monastery," Thomas Pfister said in a statement. "The number of victims' accounts has increased significantly since the...

Hitler dispatched aides to swipe the sacred relic - believed to have been used to wrap the dead body of Christ - after visiting Italy in 1938.Vatican officials had it moved south from Turin to the Montevergine monastery in the country's Campania region, but the Fuhrer's henchmen eventually stumbled across the shroud's hiding place.However they were unable to find it because of a group of brave monks who surrounded the altar in which the artifact was stashed and pretended to pray, Italian news agency ANSA reported today.Their quick-thinking meant Hitler - who historians say was obsessed with religious symbols and the...

How Catholic religious communities are trying to attract young people again. The Catholic Church has always seen the contemplative life as the "Air Force" in its spiritual struggle, as the Rev. David Toups of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commented—a conduit of spiritual power. Though the number of young people entering monasteries, convents, and the priesthood has drastically dropped from the mid-20th century, some new approaches to religious vocations have inspired some young people in America to embrace this idea, replenishing several of the older religious orders and filling new ones. One such community with a young population,...

Catholic prelates and traditionalists from around the world are gathering at St. Madeleine du Barroux monastery in France today for the funeral of Dom Gerard Calvet, the founder of the post-Vatican II traditional Benedictine movement. Father Calvet, whose influence in contemporary Catholic traditionalism trailed only that of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, died Thursday at age 80. His health had been in sharp decline since he suffered a stroke in the late 1990s.

HULBERT -- A vision born 35 years ago on the campus of the University of Kansas and nurtured in a monastery in France moved closer to reality this week, as monks at Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery moved into their new residence building. The building is the first part of a monastic complex that will include an 80-by-180-foot church with a 110-foot bell tower. "This is a dream come true," said the Rev. Phillip Anderson, the prior, or leader, of the Benedictine community living at the monastery. "All of a sudden, after all these years, it's happening," he said....

How about telling us all your age, gender and location. Also, if you want, who you like in the upcoming presidential primary.

CULLMAN — Sara Burress could have been the poster child for a modern woman making her way from pew to pulpit. But... [snip] After years of working in Christian organizations, including Campus Crusade for Christ, Burress went to seminary. She became a preacher and pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Her career growth came as women clergy were expanding in number and influence. But... [snip] Burress left her pulpit, sold her house, put her belongings in storage and gave away her beloved cat. She began converting to Catholicism. She is not a nun, although she is going through a discernment...

From Diocese of Mans: Le 21 décembre 2005, Mgr Faivre a procédé à l'introduction officielle de la Cause de béatification de Dom Prosper Guéranger. En présence du Très Révérend Père Dom Philippe Dupont, Abbé de Solesmes, il a répondu à la supplique présentée par le postulateur de la Cause, Dom Jacques de Préville, en ordonnant l'ouverture de l'enquête sur la vie, les vertus et la renommée de sainteté du Serviteur de Dieu. A cet effet, il a constitué un tribunal en nommant le chanoine Olivier Le Jariel juge instructeur, le chanoine Jean Lusseau promoteur de justice, l'abbé Camille Moulin notaire,...

PECOS, N.M. - Nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside this village in northern New Mexico, the Pecos Benedictine Monastery has long been considered cut from a different cloth from many other Roman Catholic religious communities. Its chapel is in a structure that, more than 50 years ago, was part of a dude ranch where burnt-out urbanites came to relax. The gift shop is in an old adobe building that was a stop on the Pony Express. Solar panels adorn much of the stucco complex, a well-known location for combining the study of Christian spirituality and Jungian dream analysis....

Theological Student Delivers Eucharist By Jackie Spinner Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 8, 2004; Page A16 HASWAH, Iraq -- His flak jacket was covered in dried blood, his blood. Look at the stains, Marine Lance Cpl. June N. Ramos said, pointing. There were dark red smears all over the front of his camouflage vest. Ramos reached into the pocket of the flak jacket and pulled out a small silver tin wrapped in a plastic bag. He opened the container, which held a half-dozen Communion wafers. "Instead of putting a grenade in here," Ramos said, fastening the pocket of his...

PECOS— It used to be, at least in Europe, you had to get thee to a monastery to find a beer. Now, two New Mexico monasteries want to bring Europe's longstanding tradition here by opening a brewery on the grounds of the Pecos Benedictine Monastery east of Santa Fe. The Abbey Beverage Company is seeking approval of a state liquor license for the brewery. Brad Kraus, of Santa Fe, who described himself as the "master brewer" for the project, said monks in Europe have been brewing beer for centuries. Brother William of Abiquiu's Monastery of Christ in the Desert confirmed...

We exhort young people, born into this society of audio-visually conditioned robots, to rise up against the reign of untruth. Leave television to its willing slaves; read the masters of your religious and national culture, read your mystics, your thinkers, your poets. Seek after truth, obey it as you would a sovereign, don’t let yourself be closed in by worldly or ecclesiastical conformity. To bind oneself unconditionally to an ideology or a religion, beyond what is just and unjust, is a properly satanic aberration. Totalitarian states that alternate between lies and violence (lies to cover up the violence, and violence...

Dear pilgrims of Notre-Dame, [snip] The Christian life is a pilgrimage, often painful, which passes through Golgotha, but is illumined by the splendours of the Spirit. And which leads to glory. Oh! We may well be persecuted, but I forbid that we be pitied. For we belong to a race of exiles and voyagers, gifted with a prodigious power of invention, but refusing—that is its religion—to be distracted from the things of Heaven. [snip] If we seek to pacify the earth, to beautify the earth, it is not in order to replace Heaven, but so that the earth be Heaven’s...

LISLE, IL, USA, Sep. 23, 2004 (CNA) - Benedictine University has invited pro-abortion Illinois Democratic senator Barack Obama to speak to its student body Oct. 5. Catholic journalist and commentator Matt Abbott has reported on the upcoming scheduled event and also pointed out Obama’s support for same-sex marriage. Obama reportedly opposes a Constitutional Amendment, which bans same-sex marriage. The senator, however, argues that he is not in favor of same-sex marriage, only in favor of civil unions, Abbott points out. Abbott also cites a column on IllinoisLeader.com, in which former nurse and pro-life activist Jill Stanek testifies that that Obama,...