SAINT-JEAN-DE-MATHA, Quebec – When the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance left Oka, Quebec, to escape suburban sprawl, they left behind an oversized, aging building.

Many of us, I am sure, have been inspired by the movie Of Gods and Men, the story of a group of Trappist monks who, after making a painful decision not to flee from the violence in Algeria in the 1990s, are eventually martyred by Islamic extremists in 1996. Recently, I was much inspired by reading the diaries of one of those monks, Christophe Lebreton. Published under the title Born from the Gaze of God, The Tibhirine Journal of a Martyr Monk, his diaries chronicle the last three years of his life and give us an insight into his, and his community’s, decision to remain in Algeria in the face of almost certain death. 

VATICAN CITY - When Pope Francis celebrates the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in June, he will set aside an element that has been part of the Mass for the past 32 years; the Vatican confirmed he will not confer the pallium on new archbishops during the liturgy.

From forests of walnut, oak and pine on their land near Dubuque, Iowa, often comes the wood that Trappist monks at the New Melleray Abbey hand carve into funeral caskets.