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Brother Peter Olarewaju recently recounted the horrific kidnapping and torture he and two other monks from a Benedictine monastery in Nigeria underwent, including the murder of one of the monks. Brother Godwin Eze spent his final hours encouraging his brother monks before he was singled out, shot, and his body thrown in a fast-flowing river. Eze was kidnapped Oct. 17 alongside Olarewaju and Brother Anthony Eze from the Benedictine monastery in Eruku in the Ilorin Diocese, tortured, and later killed. Unable to find the murdered monk’s body after days of searching along the river where it was thrown, the monastery...

“Events in recent months have been an occasion for the Benedictine monks of St. Procopius Abbey to examine their future relationship with Benet Academy.”Story at a glance * A group of monks have decided to cut ties with a Catholic high school in Illinois after the school hired a lacrosse coach in a same-sex marriage.* The school, Benet Academy in Lisle, Ill., had originally rescinded the coach’s job offer when she listed her wife as her emergency contact. She was extended another offer following backlash. * Benet’s chancellor said in a statement in September that he was “deeply troubled” by...

A ancient monastery of cheesemaking French monks left with nearly 3 tons of overstock because of COVID-19 lockdowns cleared its cupboards with some modern help. The Cîteaux Abbey, just south of Dijon in the heart of Burgundy, France, normally sells its raw-milk, semi-soft cheese wheels to restaurants and visitors to the monastery, which was founded in 1098. But with restaurants in France closed since October and tourism limited, the abbey’s 19 Trappist monks saw sales drop by half. “We need to clear out our stock,” brother Jean-Claude, in charge of marketing at the monastery, told The Guardian. The abbey had...

Chinese security forces continue to surround the Kirti Tibetan monastery in Sichuan after local residents tried to stop them from arresting the 2,500 monks holed up inside. The standoff began earlier this week, when hundreds of people living in Sichuan's Aba region converged on the monastery determined to stop police from removing the monks for reeducation. The monks could soon face food shortages because they depend on offerings from locals, the Voice of America reports. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. is concerned about China's actions in Aba, which it called it inconsistent with the internationally recognized principles...

Benedictine monks in Chama Canyon, New Mexico, encounter God through work, prayer and silence in the wildernessIn 1964, Father Aelred Wall, OSB (1917-84), and two other monks left Mount Saviour Monastery in New York to scout out remote locations to establish a new “daughter,” or off-shoot monastery. After visiting Maine and Minnesota, the monks came to northern New Mexico and laid eyes on a rancho in the wilderness of Chama Canyon, 75 miles north of Santa Fe. They declared, “This is it!” and established the Monastery of Christ in the Desert of Abiquiu (www.christdesert.org). At a time when religious communities...

Stratton-on-the-Fosse, England, Oct 19, 2017 / 12:54 pm (CNA).- A new BBC series will depict the daily life of Benedictine monks in a few UK monasteries, taking camera crews to capture a lifestyle normally hidden from the public’s eye. A three episode mini-series called “Retreat: Meditations from the Monastery,” the broadcast will explore the life of three different abbeys: Downside, Belmont, and Pluscarden. Produced without a narrator, the series aims to portray the quiet contemplation of the monks’ daily routines using only the natural sounds of the monasteries. Viewers will be able to experience the sights and sounds of meals,...

A story that has not received much attention, is the growing hostility towards Muslims by Buddhists in Thailand and Burma. After the killing of 20 Buddhist monks by Muslims, a leading Thai Buddhist monk called for Buddhists to defend themselves against Muslims http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/prominent-buddhist-monk/2497804.html

Myanmar's ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk Wirathu has called the UN's special rapporteur for human rights in Burma a "whore" during a public address in Yangon. The leader of the controversial 969 nationalist movement hit back at Yanghee Lee for an earlier comment in defence of the stateless Rohingya Muslims, who are persecuted in the country's western Rakhine state. "We have already made public our Race Protection Law, but without even studying it, this bitch [kaungma in Burmese] keeps on complaining about how it is against human rights!" Wirathu shouted. "Can this whore really be from a respectable family background?" he asked...

Gendarmes stand guard on a road near a retirement home for monks in Montferrier-sur-Lez, southern France, early on November 25, 2016, after an armed man burst in the home killing a woman with a knife. Armed police were hunting the man inside the home, which is home to around 70 men and women who have served as missionaries in Africa. Authorities said it was a "criminal act".(Photo credit PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images) Two people are believed to be dead and around 70 were held hostage at a retirement home for Catholic Monks in Montpellier in the South of France. According to...

A Chinese rafting attraction has established a team of bikini-clad lifeguards to ensure the safety of its visitors and accompany solo tourists to enjoy the water sport. To become a member of the 'Goddess Lifesavers' at Gulongxia Rafting in southern China, candidates must wear bikinis and combat kung fu masters before being recruited. Pictures emerged from the media showed a team of keen applicants practising martial arts skills with monks from China's famous Shaolin Temple on June 17 at the attraction in Guangdong Province, reported the People's Daily Online.

The Ladder of Heavenly UnityMoses approached the divine fire of the Burning Bush with the footsteps of his mind bare, completely free from any human trains of thought, wrote Saint Maximos the Confessor. Continuing Orthodox monasticism’s oldest unbroken tradition, Sinai monks still liturgize, shoeless, over the roots of the Burning Bush. On the holy ground where Moses was commanded to remove his sandals – together with all earthly logic – monks turn diversity’s polarizing forces to unity – some of the ways St. Catherine’s Monastery of Sinai brings Byzantium’s patristic spirit into the modern era as living tradition.One need look...

Seinfeld was a television marvel. Perhaps the most successful situation comedy series of all time, it ran from 1989 to 1998, and has become an omnipresent aspect of our lives as it continually runs in syndication and lives on in best-selling DVD box sets, making fortunes in the hundred millions for both of its co-creators. But there is yet another facet of Seinfeld at which we can marvel: the cast of characters on the show weirdly foreshadowed the rise to prominence of a large component of the dominant urban liberal wing of the Democratic Party. With a nod to Brian...

The pictures shown on television in August and September '07 were clear, despite the efforts of the Burmese police to restrict coverage: Hundreds of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marched in front of an even larger number of mostly young men. Repeatedly they were challenged by security forces and dispersed, first with batons, then tear gas and rubber bullets, and finally gunfire. -- snip -- As it turns out, George Soros and his Open Society Institute contracted with professional trainers to instruct Burmese dissidents. -- snip -- According to the Soros mentality and political theory, the invasion of Iraq to depose the...

ou are listening to one of the 33 songs from the album "Benedicta.” Those voices belong to the Benedictine monks of Norcia, and they are singing sweet words and pious prayers to the Virgin Mary. The album begins like this. Those are bells from their monastery. When they stop ringing, the monks intone responses and hymns in the grand tradition of Gregorian chant. They provide for many of their community's needs with profits from sales.

They’re holy terrors. Bands of beggars dressed like Buddhist monks have invaded the High Line and other city parks, demanding upwards of $40 from tourists — and officials are fed up. One High Line visitor handed over $5 last week, but it wasn’t good enough. “He tried to get $20,” she told The Post. Another monk’s zen demeanor dissolved after he got just a buck in exchange for the cheap plastic bracelet he proffered.

The Assyrian monks at Saint Matthew’s Monastery in the Nineveh Plains told the world they will not leave, even though the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) creeps closer to their home. The monks regularly hear battles down the mountain.

Trappist Brother Jonah Pociadlo prepares to pour Spencer ale (CNS) Two members spent six months learning the art in BelgiumA Trappist brewery has opened for the first time in the United States.The new brew, Spencer Trappist Ale, is made at St Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, by Cistercian, or Trappist, monks who wear the distinctive black and white habit.Brother Jonah Pociadlo told Catholic News Service: “It’s got a wonderful smell to it. I hesitate to describe it, because it’s something I think is pretty subjective. But I can almost taste it without it even touching my lips.”The association requires...

Brother Noah of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico says he failed to stay peaceful while dealing with United Airlines on the phone, the New York Times reported. “I said to her something like: ‘Thank you for speaking. God bless you. I will pray for you. But you have not been helpful,’” he told the broadsheet. When David Segal, author of "The Haggler" column, suggested this did not sound like much of an outburst, Brother Noah said he knows the tone of his voice “manifested anger.”

Why is the West richer than other parts of the world? What creates wealth? The scientific journal Science Nordic reports that a new PhD thesis tries to find an answer to these questions, very topical in times of bailouts and double-dip recessions and very challenging for economists, in Medieval history. And it discovers that it was the Roman Catholic order of Cistercian Monks that left a long-lasting legacy of cultivation of the virtues which made the West prosperous. ...One of the clues the thesis follows begins in France in 1098, when a breakaway group of monks formed a new...

Father Cyril is a monk of the monastery of Le Barroux in Provence.These cloistered Benedictines in this remote mountain hamlet of 615 souls have grown so rapidly in recent decades that they have outgrown their (new) quarters – and still the young vocations keep coming. In this revealing interview, Pere Cyril takes us into the story of his vocation and the lives of the more than 60 monks in this extraordinary monastery, the Abbey of St Mary Magdalene. What attracted you to the cloistered life? I was drawn to the cloistered life by the desire for a true interior life...