In Washington last week, Archbishop Patrick A. O'Boyle of Washington solemnly carried out one of the rarer ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church: the formal blessing of a new abbot. He gave his benediction to the Rt. Rev. Alban Boultwood, O.S.B., and handed him a copy of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict as a reminder of an abbot's responsibilities. Then, as a choir chanted the Te Deum, Abbot Boultwood formally accepted the fealty of 37 monks from St. Anselm's Abbey, the capital's only Benedictine monastery. American-born and British-educated, Father Boultwood, 50, was chosen by the monks (in a secret ballot) last November to be their first abbot, shortly after Pope John XXIII elevated the 37-year-old community from the status of a priory.
The solemn ceremonies of installing abbots are likely to be used more and more in the nation's future. Monasteries are relative latecomers to the institutional life of the Catholic Church in the U.S.; the first Benedictine monastery, St. Vincent's Archabbey in Latrobe, Pa., is only 115 years old. But now they are bursting with new vitality—and new affluence. In all, there are more than 2,000 American Benedictines, almost one-sixth of the worldwide strength of that order, which is far and away the leading branch of Christian monasticism. The non-Benedictine Trappists have established eight thriving new monasteries in the U.S. since the end of World War II, increased in number from 293 to 1,018. In the past decade three other congregations—the Camaldolese, the Olivetan Benedictines and the Carthusians—have established their own way of life in the U.S. Father Joseph Brennan, prior of the Regina Coeli Olivetan Monastery at Lake Charles, La., says flatly: "There has been a Benedictine renaissance in America in the last five or six years."
Duty Is to Pray. A monk is a cleric who takes vows of religion that bind him to live and serve in one monastic community until his death. Unlike Franciscan or Dominican houses, which are organized into tightly run provinces, Benedictine monasteries are almost completely independent of each other; a monk obeys only his own abbot. Unlike the Jesuits or other modern religious congregations, which have specific vocations to preach, heal or teach, monks are essentially contemplative: their major duty is the Opus Dei—the common recitation of the prayers in the Divine Office, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Monastic life varies from hard to hardest, and fewer than half of all novices last out the five-to seven-year training period before final vows are taken. As a rule, Benedictines rise at dawn to recite Matins and Lauds before Mass, spend four hours or more daily in choral prayer, observe silence after the last service of the day, Compline. Stricter congregations, such as the Trappists and the Camaldolese, rise for prayer around 2 in the morning, keep perpetual silence, abstain from meat entirely.