CAMALDOLESE BENEDICTINES

I’d be interested in knowing a little more about that Benedictine order you belong to. Who are you guys??

Yeah, well I’m not surprised you don’t know much about us. We are a pretty small group in this country. The greatest number of us hails from Italy (8 monasteries) though we do have a house in India. There are houses of Camaldolese nuns in the US, as well. But I get ahead of myself.

First, prepare yourself or a shock: from the perspective of canon law there is no such thing as "The Benedictine Order". Are you surprised? You should be. After all, everyone knows that the letters O.S.B., which Benedictines sign after their names, stand for Ordine Sancti Benedicti – the Order of St. Benedict. However, from the perspective of canon law, there is no Benedictine "order". There were Benedictine monks and nuns long before anyone spoke of religious orders. In fact, for several centuries, Benedictine monasticism was the only form of religious life in the Western Church. Thus, Benedictines are much older than the concept of a religious order.

The term "religious order" usually implies an international structure in which common observance is maintained through submission to a single authority, usually a "superior general". Benedictines have never had such a structure. That is, there has never been a single abbot who could claim jurisdiction over all Benedictine monasteries. Only the Holy Father can claim that privilege. Benedictine abbeys are fiercely independent. They are required to be financially independent both of their congregations and the diocese in which they live. They must be capable of making it on their own. Therefore, instead of an order, Benedictines are united in a "Confederation of Congregations". Each Benedictine congregation has its own set of constitutions, its own abbot president, and its own approach to living the Rule of St. Benedict. Each of the Benedictine congregations functions as a unique "order". At my last count there were some 76 different Benedictine congregations throughout the world.

The different Benedictine congregations are very loosely linked to one another through the Benedictine Confederation, presided over by the Benedictine Abbot Primate, who is elected by the Benedictine abbots of the world for an eight-year term. However, the Abbot Primate is not the head of a religious order. He has no jurisdiction over the abbot presidents of the congregations, and thus no jurisdiction over individual abbeys or monasteries. His role is to facilitate communication among the individual Benedictine communities. The Abbot Primate is charged with promoting harmony while protecting diversity. Our current Abbot Primate, Dom Nokter Wolf, known for his sense of humor, once described the Confederation as "The Disorder of St. Benedict".

Each congregation is thus self-governing and self-sufficient. And each represents a different facet of the many faceted jewel that is Benedictine spirituality. For example, the abbeys of the English Congregation run high schools and parishes. The American Cassinese Congregation and the Swiss American Congregation usually administer seminaries and universities. The Benedictines of the St. Ottilien Congregation are missionaries.

All of the Benedictine congregations follow some form of the Rule of St. Benedict. Benedict’s rule includes three vows: Stability (The promise to commit one’s entire being to the life God has given. It is a vow to a community rather than a place); Conversatio (Conversion of life. It is the vow to respond totally and integrally to the word of Christ, "Come follow me". It is as, Thomas Merton said, "The vow to obey the voice of God, . . . in order to follow the will of God in all things."); and Obedience (From the Latin ob-audire, meaning "to hear, to listen". A vow not just to obey the superior but a vow to listen to others, about giving up one’s own conceit.)

I belong to the Camaldolese Congregation, a unique amalgamation of the cenobitical (community) life and the eremitical (hermit) life. St. Romuald founded the congregation at the beginning of the eleventh century. Romuald was a Benedictine reformer who, in about 1012, after having founded or reformed nearly a hundred unconnected monasteries and hermitages, arrived in the Diocese of Arezzo seeking a place for a new hermitage. It was here that he met a count called Maldolus who offered one of his fields in the mountains to the Saint. It was eagerly accepted by Romuald who built there the famous hermitage known as Campus Maldoli or Camaldoli.

Romuald’s endeavor, in the words of St. Peter Damian was "to turn the whole world into a hermitage, and make all the multitude of the people associates of the monastic order." He introduced into Western monasticism a system hitherto unknown, and attempted a blending of the cenobitical life of the West with the eremitical life of the East. This unique and joyful union of eremitical and cenobitical life exists to this day in the Camaldolese Congregation. At our monastery at Big Sur, CA, monks and oblates live in solitary cells but gather as community for the Divine Office and Conventual Mass. The main meal (noon) is taken as a community in the refectory but all other meals are eaten in solitude. There are "Community Days" at Immaculate Heart during which strict silence is observed at all places and all times and each member of the community has "Desert Days" which are spent in complete solitude. We do have a few hermits who live most of their lives in solitude in more remote areas of the monastery grounds.

In both the monasteries and hermitages which characterize Camaldolese life, the members attend to the contemplative life above all else, which is seeking and communing with God in a very deep way throughout one’s daily life by a sharing in the Paschal mystery of Christ. Camaldolese Benedictine oblate brothers are extended members of the Camaldolese family living, in our own special way, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Camaldolese Constitutions and the rich and ancient Camaldolese tradition adapted to the secular life in which we live. If you would like to know a little more about oblate brothers check out the St. Raymond of Penafort website for the article on oblates.

I realize this is a pretty brief description of our order but I hope it gives you at least some idea of who are.