For years we have been witnessing a precipitous decline in vocations to the religious life and a corresponding increase in the median age of current members. Care of their own elderly and infirmed has been a source of particular concern, especially in those congregations where financial resources are severely limited.
I have been asked many times about the future of religious life, given these undeniable realities, and have always been reluctant to reply because I am not a member of a religious order.
On the other hand, I have many friends who are religious, have been closely associated with the Jesuits at Boston College and with the Congregation of Holy Cross at Notre Dame, and have had the privilege of addressing many religious communities of both women and men over the years.
My stock answer --- based more on instinct than on hard data --- has been that the religious communities of the future may very well consist of men and women together, married and celibate alike, living under a rule and pooling their resources ---some working outside the community, with most others contributing their services from within.
My friend Father Keith Pecklers, S.J., a widely-respected liturgical scholar who has been teaching in Rome for some 15 years, currently at the Pontifical Gregorian University, has mentioned to me several times the monastic community of Bose in Italy and its charismatic founder-prior, Enzo Biachi.
Father Pecklers taught with me in Notre Dame's summer session this year and once again brought up the subjects of Bose and Enzo Bianchi, with the hope that I would have an opportunity some day to visit the community and meet its extraordinary leader.
As a result of Father Peckler's continued encouragement, I decided to do some investigating of my own. This week's column is a highly abbreviated summary of the results.
Bose is half-way between Milan and Turin. On the day Vatican II ended, December 8, 1965, a young layman, Enzo Bianchi, then only 21, began to live a monastic life in an abandoned farm house in northern Italy. It was not until August of 1968 that he was joined by three others, including a former pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church, and a woman.
Although the local bishop was opposed, Bianchi received the support of the progressive cardinal-archbishop of Turin, Michele Pellegrino. A later bishop also gave his formal approval.
Today the community has some 80 members, with men in a slight majority. The median age is around 40. The members include a retired Orthodox Metropolitan and four Protestants.
The primary vocation is monastic, and so there are only five priest-members (not including the prior) to provide for the community's sacramental needs and those of the thousands of guests who come to the monastery throughout the year.
The prior arises at 4:30 a.m. for private prayer, while the rest of the community assembles for Liturgy of the Hours at 6 a.m. The remainder of the morning is devoted to various activities, including writing, gardening, carpentry, printing, and the bottling of foodstuffs.
The monastery also has its own publishing house, Qiqayon (the Hebrew name for the shrub that grew up to shelter Jonah from the heat), which has produced many works of theology and spirituality.
Mid-day prayer is at 12:30 p.m., followed by dinner and an afternoon of work and study, and then evening prayer is chanted at 6:30 p.m. Mass is celebrated at least twice a week, and the Sunday liturgy is always focused on the Resurrection.
Brother Enzo himself is an internationally-recognized figure, serving on various ecumenical and editorial boards, writing regular columns for major newspapers in Italy and France, and making various radio and television appearances.
He gives retreats at Bose and elsewhere for laity, priests, religious, and bishops alike, and lectures and leads conferences in Italy and abroad. He has also published several books and articles in specialized journals on the monastic life and on Christian spirituality generally.
Bianchi is a Catholic very much in the mold of Vatican II, and has enjoyed the support of both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI. John Paul II asked him and his associates to plan the papal liturgies for the Jubilee Year 2000, and they have done the same under his successor. Brother Enzo is shown on the monastery's Web site (www.monasterodibose.it) in private audience with Benedict XVI with whom he discussed the state of religious life.
Is Bose the wave of the future of monastic and of religious life? Is Enzo Bianchi a forerunner of the type of enlightened pastoral and spiritual leadership which the Church so desperately needs today?
God alone knows, but we can at least hope. Fr. Richard McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. |