How would you explain monasticism to Protestants who feel Christians should be out in the world, seeking to convert lost souls? To them, monks/nuns are hiding from society’s ills, not helping to mend ...

Christian monks once saved the cultural treasures of the western world from barbarian invasions, and now a major four-day conference in Rome is examining how modern culture affects monasticism. “We’ve ...

The monastic alternative, at least in the West, has become so deeply unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility, but there is, at least to me, something deeply appealing about ...

Much copy and debate has been generated by the Pew Foundation's recent snapshot of American religion. A lot of the conversation has sounded like the daily roundup of a religious stock market: who is ...

When Judith Valente, a Benedictine oblate, leads contemplative retreats both online and in monasteries around the country, she has been noticing that laypeople — whether Catholic or ...

This is part one of a series. Although the term "new monasticism" has been floating around ether of the contemplative world for several decades, it has remained difficult to define. Catholic ...

Monasticism in the West After the emperor Constantine the Great legalized Christianity in 313, it became the principal Roman religion, with violent persecution, now in short supply, ceding to ascetic ...

During the 6th Plenary Session of the 18th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America, Archimandrite Sergius, the abbot of St. Tikhon's Monastery in Waymart, PA addressed the delegates ...

There's a growing movement of people using monastic traditions in everyday life It’s hard to open a newspaper these days – particularly health supplements – without reading about the benefits of ...

We are used to drawing a clear dividing line between monasticism and family life, but there is no fundamental difference between them, because they are one and the same path—the path to God. Sts.