The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-08-30
BENEDICTINE ABBOT -PRIMATE
HIS POSITION AND FUNCTIONS IN
RELATION TO THE ORDER ARE
DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF
THE GENERALS OF OTHER OR
DERs.

In connection with the death of the
first Abbot-Primate of the Benedictine
Order it may not be uninteresting to
our readers to learn something about
the relation in which he stands to the
great Order of which he is the head.
The position and functions of the
Abbott-Primate of the Benedictines
are quite different from those of
the Generals of other orders-as is
very clearly indicated by the new title
that was devised for his office. The
nature and reasons of the difference
spring from the very nature of Bene-
dictine monachism and from the
Rule itself. According to st. Bene-
diets idea, each abbey is a separate
monastic family, with its own fixed
community of monks belonging to it,
even when living and working else
where; and with it's own property, it's
own administration, and it's own full,
independent life; and for several GEN.
turtles the abbeys of the mere Black
Benedictines-in contradistinction to
the orders of Cluny and Citeaux-
stood each in isolation, without bonds
or relations, other than those of
friendship, with other Benedictine
houses. In 1915, by a decree of the
Lateran Council, the monasteries of
each kingdom or ecclesiastical pro-
vince were formed into general chap
tiers for common purposes; and in the
course of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries a system of congregations
on national basis arose. And to this
day most of the Benedictine congre-
cations are national-the Swiss, the
Bavarian, the English, the French
though in some cases circumstances,
political or other, have led to an
overfowing beyond the confines of
one country But these congrega-
tions are declarations of autonomous
monasteries, impairing as little as pos
sible the primeval Benedictine idea of
the monastery as a self-contained,
self-governing community, any CEN
tralization of government being kept
at minimum and guarded against as
danger. Thus there is no analogy
whatever between the national con-
gregations of Benedictine monasteries
and the national provinces of other
orders; nor between the president of
Benedictine congregation and the
provincials in other orders.
And similarly there is just as little
analogy between the Abbot-Primate
of the Benedictines and the General
of another order. For when, twenty
years ago, Leo XIII, created the Of
flee of Primate, the fundamental idea,
enunciated in the apostolic letter,
was that the various congregations,
while retaining intact each it's own
constitutions Tor bylaws, organiza-
ton, government, and Independent
life, should form "a fraternal con-
federation" with an Abbot-Primate at
! the head, to represent the confedera-
ton at Rome, and Ito transact such
business as concerns directly the good
of the whole order"
The constitutions, observance, ex-
ternal works of the different Bene-
dictine congregations vary greatly
according to the history and condi-
lions of life and work of each, and
the national temperament and needs
of the different countries in which
they are vary as much as the cut
and fashion of the habits worn by the
Abbots-leather belts, cloth belts,
silk sashes, collars of every kind, or
none at all, hoods of many shapes, or
none at all-yet all evidently the one
Benedictine habit. These variations
of the same habit fifty symbolic that
multiplicity in unity and unity in null
tiplicity which is the characteristic
and the power, of st. Benedict's in
stitute, and responds so truly to the
spirit and the history of his Rule.