March 2006

News From The Benedictines of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery
Silver City, New Mexico, U.S.A.

On Saturday, 18 February 2006, the Mission of St Isidore the Farmer in Watkins near Denver, Colorado in the U.S.A. hosted the taking of perpetual vows by Br Vincent, Benedictine monk of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Silver City, New Mexico. Normally the community’s abbot would officiate at this function; however, none of the three male Benedictine communities affiliated with the SSPX have one. The prior, Fr Cyprian, consequently requested Bishop Bernard Fellay to do the honours, which he readily agreed to do, thereby assisting in the restoration of monasticism, the ‘spiritual dynamo’ of the Church.

Having made his vows at the Offertory of the Mass, Br Vincent shows the monks in choir the document of profession he has just signed on the altar, making them witnesses to the act.

The history of the Benedictine communities affiliated with the SSPX is an interesting one. There are many branches of the Benedictine Order,¹ but the communities in question are of the same limb: the Benedictines of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.² This branch was founded in 1850 by a secular priest, Fr Jean-Baptiste Muard (1809-1854), at the Abbey of Pierre-qui-Vire at Morvan in the Burgundy region of France [see Catholic March 2002]. Renowned for his zeal for the Sacred Heart, Fr Muard also laboured to restore the original practice of the Rule of St Benedict. Though dying only four short years after making his initial foundation, his efforts begot several sister communities throughout France, whose members were imbued with his passion for the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

These communities laboured peacefully until the Second Vatican Council, when religious orders were asked to revise their constitutions in accordance with the false spirit of aggiornamento. Many Benedictine monasteries, especially those focused on monastic reforms (e.g, Fontgombault, Randolle and Jouques) at first resisted such ruinous changes, but eventually they succumbed to post-Conciliar pressure. The only exception was the Abbey of Sainte Madeleine.

Returning to the altar, Brother extends his arms in the form of a cross and thrice chants (in Latin): Uphold me according to Thy Word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation. [Ps. CXVIII]		He then prostrates himself

Situated in the town of Le Barroux in Provence in the south of France, this community was begun in 1969 by Dom Gérard Calvet, who rightly foresaw how the conciliarist orientation was leading the Benedictine Order to destruction. Thus he received his abbot’s permission to embark on an ‘experiment in tradition’ (a paradoxical choice of terms). In 1978, the present location of Le Barroux was chosen and work began in 1980 on what would become a beautiful monastery complex built of stone.

In 1987, several monks from Le Barroux founded a new sister community, the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, Brazil (where Fr Thomas Aquinas is the prior). Tragically, only a few months later, Dom Gérard and most of his Le Barroux community succumbed to the enticements of the Ecclesia Dei Commission (newly formed by the Vatican after Archbishop Lefebvre’s ‘Operation Survival’, i.e. the consecration of four new bishops) and decided to join the Indult compromise in 1988.³ The fledgling community in Brazil found itself stranded without means of sustenance. However, Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer assured them that they would continue to assist them.

Simultaneously, the Archbishop warmly encouraged Fr Cyprian (who had been forced to leave Le Barroux due to the compromise) in the founding a community in the United States, which in 1991 was moved to its present location in the Rocky Mountains. Finally, in 2000, members coming from both existing communities established a house at the 12^th century Cistercian Abbey of Notre-Dame de Bellaigue at Virlet in France (where Fr Ange is the prior).

Mgr Fellay then vests Br Vincent in his novum vestimentum or ‘new garment.’ It symbolises death to the world, and will serve as his burial cloth upon his departure from this life.		The newly professed Brother then exchanges the kiss of peace with His Lordship, followed by his monastic superior, Fr Cyprian (on the right).

All three Benedictine houses have been slowly growing and, indeed, flourishing as the recent ceremony of perpetual profession demonstrates. Br Vincent was formerly a parishioner at the Society’s chapel of St Robert Bellarmine in St Cloud, Minnesota, and originally a Brother of the SSPX, but then he decided that a monastic way of life was his vocation, and thereupon received permission to transfer to the Benedictines. Upon taking his permanent vows, he became the first American at the monastery to do so.

In addition to the usual vows of religion (poverty, chastity and obedience), the special Benedictine vow of stability is also made. This vow of stability, an essential aspect of Benedictine monasticism, requires a monk to remain in a particular community for life (in this case, the monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe). St Benedict prescribed this wise rule in sharp contrast to some contemporary religious whom he labelled “Sarabaites”⁴ (“the most detestable kind of monks”, as they would invent their own monastic life instead of relying upon past wisdom) and “Gyrovagues,”⁵ who, compared to the Sarabaites, were “in every way [...] worse”, as they would frequently change monasteries, even daily, until they found one that suited their fancies!

Hence one of the reasons that the Rule of St Benedict is “the most perfect daughter of the first Oriental rules, the mother of all the others in the West, the sacred code which governed the monastic world for 1400 years, the most venerable of all by the profound wisdom and eminent sanctity which shine from every page, by the perfection of the religious life that it established, by its divinely ordained coherence, and by its admirable detail.⁶

In addition to the three Benedictine priors present on 18 February, 20 monks from the Silver City monastery were there to witness the inspiring event, and the following members of the SSPX were in attendance: Fr John Fullerton (U.S. District Superior), Fr Yves le Roux (Seminary Rector), Fr Christopher Leith (pastor at St Isidore’s), Fr Joseph Pfeiffer (Ridgefield, Connecticut), as well as a former military chaplain and friend of the SSPX, Fr Christopher Pieroni. Bishop Fellay offered a Solemn High Mass; during the Offertory the vows were made, signifying profoundly the immolation and holocaust that the monk makes of himself by his vows of religion and of stability.

Following the ceremonies, nearly 400 of the faithful attended the banquet held immediately afterwards. Let us continue to pray for a steady increase in monastic vocations as well as for the perseverance of those who already have set their wills to “die to the things of this world.” †

1.Thus the Cistercians and Trappists are also Benedictines, the former a reform of the lax Benedictines in the 11^th century, and the latter of the former in the 18th century.

2. This in turn belongs to the French Province of the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance derived from the Subiaco branch in Italy.

3. Dom Gérard claimed that this was being done without compromise to Tradition, and his reward was his being consecrated an abbot and the ‘regularisation’ of his monastery in 1990. Several years later Dom Gérard concelebrated the New Mass, while the monastery produced tracts defending the New Catechism, and attempted to reconcile the errors of religious liberalism expressed in the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae with Tradition.

4. The Rule of St Benedict, chapter 1, 6-9.

5. Ibid, chapter 1, 10-11.

6. Introduction to the Constitutions of the Benedictines of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, p 9.

[Text and pictures Regina Coeli Report 03/06]