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Article: Monks say work American style hazardous to the monastic life.(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- September 6, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The monastic life of prayer, contemplative reading and simple work has been a remarkably hardy specimen of social organization. It has lasted nearly two millennia, survived the fall of several empires, broken wave after wave of invading barbaric thugs, turned hatchetmen into Holy Roman emperors, preserved learning through the Dark Ages, and given eschatological witness in the teeth of the French, the industrial and sundry Marxist revolutions.
But it may at last have met a stronger match than any of these.
Work, American style, is destroying Benedictine monastic life.
That problem and how to cope with it were the subjects of discussion by ...