A reader sends in this editorial from The Tablet, England's Catholic newspaper:
When the Cistercian monk and author Thomas Merton first visited the monastery that was to become his home, the Abbey of Gethsemani, he is said to have exclaimed that he had discovered the only real city in America. It was a comment that conveyed how well a place functions under the rule of St Benedict, with its emphasis on service, order, hospitality and communal life.It has become a commonplace among some observers of monastic life, and particularly of the Benedictine order, to claim that the greatest contribution that those who follow the rule make is to embody a kind of archive of Western civilisation, a storehouse of culture and values that once shaped Europe.
The International Abbots' Congress, which has recently finished in Rome and to which Benedictine abbots travelled from around the world, put to rest to any suggestion that this is a fossilised order. While vocations in the West are in decline, they are rising - as is commonly experienced in other orders - in Asia and Africa. And while there appears a disinclination to commit permanently to monastic life in Europe, Benedictine abbeys run not only highly popular schools but also guest houses and retreat centres on which they regularly hang their "No Vacancies" signs. This popularity certainly puts paid to any idea that Benedictinism's role is that of a cultural library. Rather, it can be put down to the desire of individuals for contact with a community that represents a still centre of prayer, stability and attentive listening. The rule teaches that the integrated life - a life where work and prayer and rest are woven together and balanced - is the good life.But at a time of growing unease about society, and particularly the way that business has been conducted in the West, St Benedict's rule offers wider insights as well. While contemporary society has turned time into a continuum of work and consumption, which causes tremendous strain to family life, the rule is a reminder that work needs to be reconfigured to provide a more human environment. Economics seen through the prism of the rule is not a system whose only goal is production and exchange, but a means of human development and enhancement.
Dorothy Emmett wrote 50 years ago in Functions, Purposes and Powers that all organisations could learn from religious communities, for she spotted the connection between vocations and creativity. That creativity comes from an organisation focused on tasks and ideals and where people are free to be individuals as well as associate closely with their team. Such a focus in a monastery where the abbot leads his brethren, listening closely to the needs of the community, brings about a common life. For those in business, it offers a reminder that humankind flourishes best in situations of mutual dependence. That wisdom has been too long ignored in business, but mutuality, as expressed in the work of building societies, co-operatives and credit unions, may see its revival following the disastrous cut-throat, pay-later methods of recent years.
St Benedict does not comment directly on money, but he warns his monks of the need for humility, of the taint of avarice and the value of good stewardship. His rule is a rule of Christian anthropology, an understanding that society is best sustained by enabling the flourishing of all. It has survived for 14 centuries. Never has it been more needed than now.
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I think the point of dispute over freedom points back to the need for some kind of common set of values or at least a common idea of what goal the community is aiming at. Pluralism may be wonderful in many ways, but it does not tend toward cohesion in a close community. In fact, there was quite a controversy last year over data from Robert Putnam of Harvard Univ. that showed that the more pluralistic a community is, the less trust, neighborliness and civic involvment is present in that community.
There's an open question of how much cohesion one may be seeking, and yes cohesion can be an oppressive force if is abused. But at some level, without a shared set of substantive ideals (as opposed to procedural ideals such as "consent of the governed") I don't believe a Benedict option community is possible. The leader of such a community will have some procedural constraints on his actions, but more importantly will have substantive constraints (treat everyone as a brother or sister made in the image and likeness of God, obey the rule of the order and the Gospel, etc).
So instead of the American focus on "freedom from" various forms of limits on one's choices, perhaps one could reconsider another version of "freedom for" the virtuous life in a community devoted to building up human dignity. In that understanding of freedom, one views freedom as the ability to conform oneself to a set of virtuous ideals, while striving to free oneself from more selfish and wounded impulses.
Because of our tendency to sin and fall short, this ideal is never going to be perfectly realized. But the question is whether it is worth some sacrifices in order to try to make it work as best we can, and with God's grace.
Sally Rodgers, But at some level, without a shared set of substantive ideals...I don't believe a Benedict option community is possible.
True, but without a shared set of substantive ideals, NO community is possible for anybody.
And I would carry this a step further: even if a community has a shared set of values, if these values are not in line with natural law this community will self-destruct. Unity, as critical as it is, remains only half the battle.
This is why all the evidence shows (Putnum carefully listed this evidence in his book Bowling Alone, even if he got the interpetation wrong) that our culture lies in flat-out ruins, and the center cannot hold. The hard truth is that we cannot agree on even basic, obvious things anymore, and what little the majority is unified on is typically opposed to natural law anyway and holds the seeds of our demise.
But it still remains a fascinating exercise to watch folk flail around in denial at the true state of our culture, and then to hear the cries for "community!" and "choice!" in the very same breath!
quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Alaskans? bishops? German bishops?
metanous, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Juvenal never heard of Alaska, and Germans were barbarians to him... But the very question "who watches the watchmen", while good poetry, is a meaningless lament when it comes to real life. The reality:
1) Humans are primates and live large social groups which confer great biologial advantage to them. Primates living alone simply cannot survive, like a fish trying to walk and breath on land. For humans, it's embracing a group or going extinct.
2) All groups must have leadership to operate well, and those who have tried to escape this truth always devolve into a mess of chaos and pain. History is littered with this wreckage, always resulting in punitive "leadership" that is actually now welcomed in place of mob rule.
3) Bottom line: groups with sinful leaders may indeed fail before those leaders are replaced by good men who answer to God and natural law and not to themselves and their own ego. However, we KNOW that those groups without leaders are going to fail. For sure.
Every vice can be looked at as a good merely taken too far. Human freedom is one such good (it's part of natural law and in fact a good part of why our free market does so well economically in modern times). However, the West since the Reformation has taken this worship of freedom too far, and now is finally demanding freedom at any and all cost. This price? The life of our very culture which has spent its wad on freedom, and another community will thus rise and take its place that is more in tune with natural law. Hello, Benedict!
I think it's interesting that the people who most love the idea of authoritative leadership usually seem to think of themselves as being the leaders--or at any rate, close to the leadership, their trusted lieutenants perhaps. They never seem to envision themselves as mere peons, sacrificing their own lives for a greater good. It's kind of like how amateur reincarnationists always seem to have been kings and queens in another life. I wonder who is mdavid's trusted leader? To whom does he submit himself? Or who is Rod's ideal leader, for that matter? Not the Pope, obviously . . . .
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