A COMMUNITY OF COMMUNITIES
THE CISTERCIAN FAMILY
ABBOT ARMAND VEILLEUX, OCSO
Abbey of Scourmont
Abstract.. The Trappist Order has its own characteristics. Dom
Armand Veilleux here shows its strengths, its opportunities and
its fragility. It is an example of a monastic
network that has evolved according to different times and places.
It is an especially supportive structure whose centralization is perhaps
not so strong as is often claimed.
In the bosom of the great family
constituted by all the communities that live by the Rule of St Benedict is the Cistercian family. This is made up of all the
communities sprung from Cîteaux. Nowadays it brings together two great Orders legally distinct, the Ordo Cisterciensis and the Ordo Cisterciensis Strictioris Observantiae, popularly
known as the Trappist Order. The Order of Cistercian Bernardine
Nuns of Esquermes and the Cistercian Congregation
of St Bernard, known
as Las Huelgas,
in
Spain and
some independent monasteries also belong to it.
Even if all the communities belonging
to these various groupings live the same
Cistercian charism, they live it according to
different modalities, often due to mere historical chance. In the present article I shall confine
myself to describing how this charism is lived in our
day in the Order to
which I belong, the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance. Moreover, far from claiming to give a
global presentation of the charism which belongs to my Order, in view of the
precise objective of the
present publication on monastic networks, I shall limit myself to describing how relationships between
the monasteries of our Order are
articulated.
Cîteaux was born in 1098, when Robert, Abbot of
Molesmes, of which he was himself the
founder, left that monastery with a score of monks to try out a renewed form of the incarnation of
Benedictine monachism in a society and a Church which
was boiling with cultural change. In the final
years of the eleventh century and at the end of the period called the Gregorian Reform
we find ourselves in an exceptional moment of
creativity. Chateaux is, with Vallombrosa, Camaldoli and the Grande
Chartreuse, only one of the new forms of monastic life which appear in the West at this period. After a slow and
difficult beginning this foundation was to know an extraordinary expansion.
The Central Commission
Robert, called back to Molesmes by the community, and
obliged by the Pope to answer their
appeal, returned there. He was succeeded as head of the foundation of Chateaux by two of his
co-founders, Alberic and Stephen. The latter, Stephen
Harding, of English origin, was a genius for organisation. To him we owe the Carta
Caritatis or Charter of Charity, which describes the relationship between the
community of Meaux and all the communities founded by Citeauxx,
as well as their own foundations and affiliated houses. For the first time in
the history of monasticism
it had been discovered how to group several communities in one great Order
while still wholly respecting the autonomy of each one. It would be possible to say that the
fundamental intuition of Stephen Harding and of the Carta
Caritatis of Cîteaux was to make of the Order a community
of communities. The fundamental unit of the Order remains the local community with the abbot it has
elected. In the present canonical situation, even if there are different
conditions for becoming a priory or
an abbey, each community, whether priory or abbey, is an autonomous community from the canonical
point of view, and its superior is a
major superior. Even in the exceptional cases where it is necessary to nominate provisionally a
superior ad nutum as the head of a community, this superior is a major
superior, and the community loses none of
its legal autonomy. The only difference is that in this case the superior is
nominated rather than elected by the community.
General Chapter
The abbots and priors of all the communities meet
periodically in a General Chapter. At the
beginning of the Order this meeting occurred every year; now it takes place every three years. The
General Chapter is the only authority which has jurisdictional power over the local community. It could be conceived that the autonomous communities which constitute the
order delegate to it a small
part of their authority, this delegation
being established in the Constitutions of the Order approved by the Holy See.
The General Chapter has powers clearly defined and
limited by the Constitutions. It can
approve new foundations, incorporate or suppress monasteries, accept the resignation of an abbot
and, in rare cases, depose an abbot. It
can promulgate laws or regulations which apply to all
the monasteries, but it cannot interfere in the internal running of communities, except to correct any abuses there
may be.
Filiation
Another structure of the Order which
goes back to the Carta Caritatis
is filiation. Each community
is considered a daughter-house of the house which
founded it, and therefore that house holds the title of mother-house. The abbot or prior of the mother-house is called the Father Immediate of all its daughter-houses. The Father Immediate has the responsibility of a pastoral oversight of the
daughter-houses, and is
called to help them in very diverse ways, material no less than
spiritual. If necessary he can correct abuses, but in no way may he take part in the internal running of the community, which
depends entirely on its own abbot. He has
the responsibility of making the regular visitation of the community (called Visitatio
canonica in Canon Law) at least every two years.
In the course of the centuries
certain communities which fathered several others have disappeared. In these cases
the titles of mother-house and Father Immediate have
passed to other communities. Filiations have sometimes been reorganized to avoid certain houses being overloaded with too many daughter-houses. The principle of
filiation nevertheless remains
absolute: every house of the Order has a mother-house. It is a question of the relationship between two
communities, even if it is the superior
of the mother-house who is the most closely affected
by this relationship. Obviously Cîteaux is in a
particular situation, the Abbot General
acting as its Father Immediate.
The Abbot General
The Order has an Abbot General. His role is important
among us, even if his juridical powers
are very limited. Obviously he is by right President of the General Chapter which functions as a
college, where the president is primus
into pares, He can make the regular visitation of all the communities. He has a certain number of powers
given him by the Constitutions, such as the power to dispense from temporary vows, but he does not have authority to interfere in the
internal life of the communities. He could
not, for example, give to a monk a permission which
had been refused to him by his abbot. His role is essentially to be a living
link between all the communities of the Order, and to be ready to stimulate the quality of monastic
life in all the communities. In exceptional cases he can,
with his Council, elected by the General
Chapter, take urgent decisions in the
name of the General Chapter and using its
authority. For several years now his Council has included both monks and nuns.
Nuns
Hitherto 1 have spoken in the
masculine, although our Order includes 75 monasteries of nuns, while those of monks number 100.
The history of relationships
between the communities of nuns and monks within our Order is complex, and there can be no
question of even a résumé here. Let us rest
content with describing the present situation since Vatican II.
Each monastery of nuns in
our Order is considered a daughter-house of a monastery of monks whose abbot or titular prior is
the Father Immediate. Until Vatican II our Cistercian nuns were subject to the decisions of General Chapters composed solely of masculine
superiors. From the middle of the
twentieth century periodical meetings of abbesses were held, which
gradually acquired the name of General Chapter. At the time of the post-conciliar aggiornamento
and the revision of our Constitutions the question of the relationships between the monasteries of monks and those of nuns was naturally
the object of long discussion. In
order to give the nuns complete autonomy one possibility was to have two parallel Orders, one of nuns
and the other of monks, working together
but without any legal dependence one on the other. The nuns were the first to reject this
possibility. The solution retained by our
Constitutions — this was as far as it was possible to go at the time — was to consider that all the
monasteries of the Order, monks as well as
nuns, form a single Order but with two General Chapters, distinct but interdependent, and
distinct Constitutions.
In reality the Constitutions
are almost identical for monks and nuns, except for a few points proper either to the monks or to
the nuns. In practice, since 1987
General Chapters have always been held at the same time in the form of 'General Mixed Meetings', votes which had constitutional import being
taken separately. The election of the Abbot General has occurred in the two
Chapters, the candidate elected requiring a
majority in both assemblies. Since 2011 we finally have a single General Chapter composed of abbots and
abbesses and exercising authority over
the whole Order.
More recent Structures
In our day some structures have
been born within the Order to respond to new needs. The
first was the Central Commission. This was born after the Council, or rather during it, as an organ
necessary for careful preparation of
General Chapters, at the time when these were facing the exigencies of the post-conciliar renewal. In
the course of the years its role has evolved. At present
its role is essentially to prepare the General Chapters on
the basis of the work done by the Regional Conferences of the Order. It is composed of the Abbot
General and his Council and
representatives of all the Regions of the Order. When it is in session the
Central Commission can also make use of the enlarged Council of the Abbot General for important questions which he wishes to bring before it. Until very recently
there were two Central Commissions juridically distinct, one masculine and the other feminine, the two always meeting together. With the arrival
of the single Chapter there is now only one Central Commission for the whole Order.
During the Second Vatican Council
the abbots and abbesses began to meet informally to share
their concerns and their experiences in the context of the conciliar renewal. Thus
Regional Conferences were constituted which
gradually became a new structure in the Order. They are groupings of monasteries by geographical areas.
In no way are they the equivalent of
Provinces such as other religious institutes have, for they have no power of decision and still less
of legislation. First and foremost they are a place for pastoral exchanges between the participants, who are the superiors of the
monasteries of the region and a number of
delegates who are not superiors, varying according to the regions. The Order sometimes entrusts to
them the study of important
questions concerning the Order as a whole, before they are
discussed and — if it is suitable — decided at the General Chapter.
These Regional Conferences have had an important part to
play in the preparation of our new
Constitutions and additional Statutes, for example those concerned with formation, temporal
administration and the regular visitation.
This elaboration of the Constitutions, which actively involved all the members of the Order, took place
over a period of 25 years, the regions
serving as a stepping-stone to bring the viewpoints of the base to the attention of the General
Chapter.
Mutual Assistance
I have often heard our Benedictine brothers and sisters
say that our Order is very centralized.
From the juridical point of view this is certainly not the case. From this point of view it is probably less centralized than most of the Congregations of the Benedictine
confederation. The truth is that,
in the course of the preceding centuries but more particularly in our day, our Order has set on foot
several organs of co-operation between monasteries, or structures of mutual assistance which are at the service of the communities without
restricting their autonomy. These
services exist as much at the level of the regions as at the level of the Order as a whole.
First of all there exist a certain number of commissions. Some have
had a provisional role and have ceased to exist, like the commission for the redaction of the Constitutions, or those set up
for the preparation of one or other
statute. The liturgical commission of the Order had an important role to play during the period of
adaptation of our liturgy to the demands of
Vatican IL It ceased to exist and was replaced by a simple secretary for
liturgy at the moment when liturgical commissions were created in the various regions of the
Order. The same thing happened with formation. We have in the order a general Secretary for formation, whose role is essentially to
circulate information in the regions. There
exist also at the regional level secretaries for formation, whose task is to circulate information and to
propose sessions of formation, in
particular for the various stages of initial formation. In several regions these organisms in the service
of the liturgy or formation, as also other
groupings like meetings of bursars, guestmasters and mistresses, cheese-makers, etc,
include members of other monastic Orders, or even
persons who do not belong to the monastic world.
A Legal Commission is at
the service of the Abbot General and his Council, and also at the
service of the regions and local superiors for the study or the solution of questions concerning the
proper law of the Order or of the
universal Church. During the General Chapter the members of this commission who attend the Chapter either
as capitulars or under some other
title constitute the legal commission of the Chapter. There is also a financial commission of the
Order as well as a commission to co-ordinate
mutual financial assistance between the monasteries of the Order.
Commissions for
Assistance
In the course of the last two decades the custom has
developed of creating a special
commission to accompany a community living through a particular situation, whether as a consequence of an
internal crisis or, as in most cases, to
confront questions posed by the ageing of the members of the community and the scarcity of vocations.
Customarily these commissions are named 'Commission for Assistance' or sometimes 'Commission for the Future'. They are created at the request of the superior of the community or of the Father
Immediate, or occasionally of the General
Chapter. They do not replace the Father Immediate, who normally is a member of them. They have no
power of decision. They are
simply to help the community on its journey and in its need to help the superior and the Father Immediate
in the exercise of their ministry to
the community. This process is still evolving.
An Enlarged Network
Obviously the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance is a
complex reality. It is a community
of communities, in which the communities are linked to one another in a whole
interlocking network. In a spirit of collegial
responsibility and in absolute respect for the local autonomy a number of structures strive to achieve a task both
effective and enlightened by charity and
shared responsibility.
At the same time the Order maintains relationships with other monastic networks; Thus it is
that the Order has always been active on the Council of the AIM, and that the monasteries of the
Order, especially in the young Churches,
participate in the associations which join together communities belonging to various monastic Orders.
None of these networks is simply a
human structure of co-ordination and assistance. They incarnate in the daily life of our communities
the fundamental Christian reality
of Koinonia.