Exploring New Monastic Communities

The (Re)invention of Tradition

Stefania Palmisano

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780367879532
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317137252
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Examining the recent radical re-invention of monastic tradition in the everyday life of New Monastic Communities, Exploring New Monastic Communities considers how, growing up in the wake of Vatican II, new Catholic communities are renewing monastic life by emphasizing the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects which they identify in the Council. Despite freely adopting and adapting their Rule of Life, the new communities do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations: they are gender-mixed with monks and nuns living under the same roof; they accept lay members whether single, married or as families; they reject enclosure; they often limit collective prayer time in order to increase time for labour, evangelization and voluntary social work; and are actively involved in oecumenical and interreligious dialogue, harbouring thinly-veiled sympathy with oriental religions, from which they sometimes adopt beliefs and practices. Offering unique sociological insights into New Monastic Communities, and shedding light on questions surrounding New Religious Movements more generally, the book asks what 'monastic' means today and whether these communities can still be described as 'monastic'.

Chapter 1
Packing Our Bags: A Conceptual Model for Studying NMCs

1.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of ‘New Monastic Communities’ (NMCs) in the Catholic world, offering an analytical model for studying them. By the expression NMCs, I mean groups of people (at least some of whom have taken religious vows) living together permanently and possessing two main characteristics:

1. Born in the wake of Vatican Council II, they are renewing monastic life by emphasizing the most innovative and disruptive aspects they can find in the Council’s theology;

2. They do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations – although they freely adapt their Rules of Life.

The few data available show that these communities – while spread throughout the world – are mainly concentrated in the United States and in Europe. In the latter, they predominate in Italy, France and Spain, Catholic countries with a rich history of spontaneous movements, associations and basic communities (Secondin 1991; Favale 2003; Rocca 2002, 2010). Despite their global presence, NMCs are practically unknown outside each one’s sphere of action. The sociological community has hitherto devoted little attention to them (Hervieu-Léger 1986; Wittberg 1996; Landron 2004; Oviedo 2010; Dal Piaz 2014) and the scarce literature available consists mostly of fact-finding surveys carried out in ecclesiastical circles with principally practical objectives (how the ecclesiastical hierarchy should behave towards NMCs, how bishops can canonically recognize them and how they can step in to put the brakes on certain eccentricities). At the same time, sociology has taken little or no interest in traditional monasticism. In contrast to historians (such as Leclerq 1968; Lawrence 1984; Moulin 1978) who have studied its role as the motor of economic and social development in mediaeval Europe – without, however, disdaining modern evolutions – interest in monasticism within the field of sociology has been somewhat limited, despite the fact that some classics of the discipline had drawn attention to it. This is not the place to fill in the gap, but a comparison with contemporary traditional monasticism – specifically the Benedictine, which stood out in the thousand-year span of the Middle Ages, and the monastic branches which subsequently grew from its trunk – is essential in order to understand New Monasticism. NMCs, while keeping a critical distance from traditional communities, are inspired by and draw on them and assume, therefore, theoretical relevance in the dialectic that binds them together. Indeed it is the relationship between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ monasticism which is the basis for the question informing this volume. What characteristics distinguish NMCs from traditional communities? More exactly, what are the breaking-off points and the points of continuity? Do NMCs simply readjust traditional monasticism or do they transform it radically to the extent of (re)inventing it? And if they (re)invent it, can we still call them ‘monastic’? In order to answer these questions, after discussing the situation of the sociology of monasticism (Section 1.2), I shall draw a map of post-Conciliar monastic renewal (Section 1.3) and then concentrate on the distinguishing features of New Monasticism (Section 1.4). In Section 1.5 I shall propose an analytical model for the study of NMCs, and in Section 1.6 formulate the hypothesis underpinning the research upon which this book is based: in the light of the discontinuity with the past which they reveal, NMCs are an exemplary case of (re)invention of tradition. I shall now start answering the many questions raised by this chapter, but a full answer can only be given at the end of the road that this book travels.

1.2 Monasticism: Status quaestionis

The social science literature on monasticism divides quite neatly along geographical lines: anthropologists, with very few exceptions, have studied monasticism in Asia, primarily in Buddhist societies; sociologists have examined Christian monasticism, predominantly in Europe and North America. At the moment, however, there is much more anthropological than sociological research. This gap is even more surprising if one considers that for the classics of sociology (from Durkheim to Simmel, from Troeltsch to Weber) understanding the world and its workings meant analysing its opposite – or, rather, the behaviour of those who deliberately removed themselves from it and, consequently, the dialectic between societies of departure and of flight. It is well known that it was the contrast between Western and Eastern monasticism which suggested to Weber (2002) the categories of otherworldly asceticism and mysticism.¹ But the development of the discipline consigned interest in the subject to the sidelines, and only in the 1970s did sociologists again occupy themselves with monasticism. The picture is still fragmented, however, with a lot of research paths communicating little with one another and of most unequal quality. Francis (1970) and Hill (1971) were the first to recall attention to monasteries, albeit with little success because their articles, inspired by classificatory intentions, aimed at building a typology of religious orders. On the contrary, the reflexions of Jean Séguy, a French sociologist who published a valuable article about monasticism as a practical utopia (1984), carry considerable theoretical weight.² The central idea is that monasticism implies a potential – and sometimes explicit – form of radical protest or an expression of malaise experienced by those who strive to put into practice what Troeltsch (1969) calls the absoluteness of Christianity, shunning any sort of compromise with the bonds of this world. These theoretical contributions are counterbalanced by some transatlantic ethnographical research which, from within the monastery, traces the changes (in terms of ascesis, observances, obedience, liturgy) introduced by the monks into their daily lives in response to the Council’s exhortation to update. In particular, Endress (1975) and Winthrop (1981; 1985), two of the very few anthropologists who took an interest in Christian monasticism, explored the relationship between tradition and innovation in Benedictine monasticism; whereas Hillery (1992), one of the first sociologists to practise ethnography in enclosure, examined the factors of social cohesion in a monastery from a functionalist point of view.

As Hervieu-Léger (2012) suggests, it is reasonable to suppose that the scarcity of sociological studies on monasticism is due to the difficulties which this object of research present to the sociologist. As a general rule, the first operation carried out by researchers when studying social reality is a criticism of common-sense definitions and conceptual categories produced by the social actors. But a particular problem arises when the researchers approach monasticism: the indeterminate nature of the concept for the actors themselves. Monks and nuns – interviewed recently by sociologists (Genova and Palmisano 2014) – supply several different answers to the question ‘Who is a monk or a nun today?’. Many of them, inspired by the Rule of Saint Benedict, state that anybody ‘who seeks God’ is a monk; others – alluding to the Greek monos – that it is ‘whoever is one in the sense of united or unified’; still others that it is anybody ‘who has detached him/herself from the world with the aim of completing one’s own spiritual perfection rather than of serving others’. There is even more variety in the range of responses to the question ‘How do monks and nuns seek God today?’ The most important dichotomy can be seen between those who separate from the world (with grills, walls or watercourses) and those who – albeit maintaining a critical distance from the world – are incorporated into it, which is to say not taking refuge from it, rejecting the habit and enclosure and, as in urban monasticism, residing at the heart of the city.

The shortage of legal sources (Hervieu-Léger 2012; Fantappiè 2014) also contributes to the vagueness of monastic identity. It is surprising that not even Canon Law defines objective criteria allowing identification of the specific subset made up by monks in the broad range of consecrated life. In general, a monk is understood as anybody belonging to an order defined by the Catholic Church as a ‘monastic order’.³ In its turn such an order is traditionally identified as the foundation of communal life conducted in accordance with a Rule under the authority of a superior. The weakness of the discriminating power of this descriptive approach becomes immediately obvious if one recognizes that it really embraces the majority of religious orders, including the mendicant ones and congregations with an apostolic vocation. The lack of a shared definition shows up also in the main social sciences and religious dictionaries⁴ which, in an attempt to extend the notion of monk – a term historically rooted in the Christian tradition – to other religions, end up by adopting a descriptive, non-hermeneutical approach. For example, George Weckman, in his entry ‘Monasticism’ in the Encyclopedia of Religion (see note 5), draws up a list of universal traits characterizing monasticism, among which are: a distinct social status allowing a certain relational environment; life discipline; separation from ordinary existence in order to follow the path of perfection. Although this suggestion is praiseworthy for its attempt to identify a tool for transnational comparisons, it runs the risk of including in the definition of monasticism many forms of social aggregation that have nothing to do with religious and spiritual seeking.

Therefore, faced with the instability of the research object, whose semantic borders seem quite unfocused, a working definition of traditional monasticism becomes opportune in order to orient our sociological task. Beginning with both scientific literature⁵ and my own direct research experience in traditional monasteries,⁶ the definition of monastic life which is my point of reference in this book implies an existence characterized by: a plan or Rule of Life; assiduous prayer based on the Liturgy of the Hours; a more or less marked voluntary separation from the world designed to avoid meetings and activities which are not compatible with the plan or Rule of Life; adoption of the evangelical recommendations of poverty, chastity and obedience, to which are added vows of steadfastness (stabilitas) and conversion of customs (conversio morum). If these can be considered the consubstantial traits of traditional monastic life,⁷ the present chapter’s topic for debate will be whether and to what extent NMCs are aligned with or divergent from them.

At present, the sociology of monasticism is a restricted field which has been subjected to the following criticisms:

a) Much more research has been devoted to monasticism in Oriental religions than in the Christian world;

b) Sociologists are more interested in studying consecrated life in general than monasticism in particular;

c) The few sociological writings on monasticism which do exist are not totally satisfying, too preoccupied as they are with narrow theoretical or typological issues to yield studies which are truly empirical in the ethnographical sense of the word;⁸

d) The vast majority of contemporary reflections on the monastic world come from ‘practitioners’ – monks and nuns, abbots and abbesses, theologians and lay people whose productions are hosted in a galaxy of specialized journals (Vie consacrée, Credere oggi, Vita Monastica, Erbe und Auftrag, Review of Religious Orders) with limited circulation.

But the landscape is changing. Over the last decade a lively research stream has sprung up; resulting from different approaches, it is giving new scientific visibility to the sociological study of monasticism.⁹ In short, we can identify three focuses of interest upon which these studies are concentrated:

1. The relationship between monasticism and modernity. This nexus is examined in the light of meanings attributed to fuga mundi by monks today (Bosgraaf 2008; Jonveaux 2010; Hervieu-Léger 2012); the role played in monasteries by economics, new media and tourism (Jonveaux 2013; De Groot, Pieper and Putman 2014; Ludueña forthcoming; Langewiesche forthcoming; Tranvouez forthcoming); and the paradoxical contraposition of monasteries’ vocation crisis combined with the increased attraction among laypeople towards cloisters and monastic spirituality (Van Tongeren forthcoming);

2. The great variety of Christian monasticism. There is a multiplication of research on Orthodox (Pop forthcoming; Denizeau 2014; Hämmerli 2014; Poujeau 2014) and on Catholic monasticism, with attention being paid to the national specificness of cloistered life (in the UK, Irvine 2010; in Spain, Clot forthcoming; in France, Landron 2004 and Jonveaux 2011a; in Italy, Dal Piaz 2014 and Palmisano 2014b; in Austria, Jonveaux 2014; in Argentina, Ludueña 2008; in Togo, Jonveaux 2013, forthcoming), while the only investigation into Anglican monasticism is still in progress (Eccles forthcoming). Increasing attention is also being paid to experiments in interreligious monastic dialogue (Reichl 2014);

3. The theoretical, methodological and epistemological challenges raised by the study of monasticism. There is a growing number of contributions making relevant the intuitions of both classical and modern authors who have reasoned upon the theme. To cite two recent examples: Paul-André Turcotte (2014) analytically reconstructs Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch’s theoretical plot of fuga mundi analysis, concentrating on Christian monks’ experience between sects and church ideal types; while Enzo Pace (2014) reflects on the relationship between monasticism and utopia, starting from Jean Séguy’s ideas. In tandem, there is an increase in reflections on research techniques used in monasteries: the limitations and advantages of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires (Genova and Palmisano 2014); the use of ethnography in cloisters (Ludueña 2005; Irvine 2010; Sbardella 2012, 2014); the potentialities of interdisciplinary approaches (Abbruzzese 1995; Giorda, Gonzàlez and Hejazi 2014).

This volume aims to enrich sociological knowledge of monasticism by studying New Monasticism which, as we shall see in the following section, has a privileged bond with Council theology upon which it behoves us to pause.

1.3 Towards a Map of Contemporary Monasticism

It is well known that the Second Vatican Council created widespread contrast between innovative impulses and conservative reactions (Baudouin and Portier 2001, 2002; Pelletier 2002; Poulat 2003; Melloni and Ruggieri 2010; O’Malley 2012). In the context of consecrated life this conflict cannot be explained by a simplistic opposition between old and new institutions, but is more complicated: some institutions, both pre- and post-Conciliar, have instituted processes of renewal and reform experiments, whereas others have chosen more conservative directions. With the aim of constructing a typology of contemporary monasticism, I shall adopt as fundamenta divisionis the chronological (communities born before/after the Council) and the axiological (traditionalist/innovational communities with respect to the Council’s heritage) criteria. The map resulting from crossing these dimensions is synthesized in Table 1.1, where I give some examples of the groups here described, including the names of exemplary exponents of each.¹⁰

Table 1.1 A map of contemporary monasticism.

Source: Palmisano.

As Table 1.1 shows, contemporary Catholic monasticism is dominated by two main groups: the pre-Conciliar – or ‘Old Monasticism’ – and the ‘New Monasticism’. Three streams can be traced in ‘Old Monasticism’:

a) ‘Traditional’ or ‘classical’ communities which existed before Vatican II (Benedictines, Trappists and Cistercians, for instance) and have been renewed – with varying degrees of ‘liberalism’ in their interpretations – in line with its recommendations. To give an example, whereas the Camaldolese order adopted the Council’s pronouncements liberally, (which explains the changeover to a totally Italian-language liturgy, the opening of monastic spaces to oecumenical and interreligious hospitality, and abandoning the monastic habit in private), other congregations chose more prudent updating limited to superficial aspects of their monastic physiognomy while...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Italian New Monasticism
• 1 Packing Our Bags: A Conceptual Model for Studying NMCs
• 2 Journeying Among New Piedmontese Monastic Communities
• 3 Success in the Monastery: Origins and Consequences
• 4 Between ‘Pretenders’ and ‘Heirs’: The (Re)invention of Tradition in New Monasticism
• 5 Ambiguous Legitimacy: The Episcopal Test for NMCs
• 6 Key Insights and Future Challenges
• Appendix: Interview Modules
• Bibliography
• Index