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Hebrew graffiti, including the phrase "Jesus is a monkey," was daubed on the walls of a monastery near Jerusalem early Tuesday in what police suspect was a so-called 'Price Tag' attack by right-wing, pro-settler extremists, according to reports. Vandals torched the wooden door of the Latrun Monastery and spray-painted the graffiti on the holy site's stone walls, Israeli police said.

About two weeks ago, the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals reached its final verdict concerning the Mor Gabriel Monastery, which has existed for more than 1600 years. It says that half the land the monastery is on belongs to the Treasury. The new Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not yet commented on the issue, which does not come as a surprise to me. Some Muslim villagers suddenly claimed in 2008 that the land that has been used for many years by the monastery actually belongs to them. The court of first instance rejected their claim. The court held that...

The world’s oldest functioning Christian monastery faces a clouded future, after an appeals court in Turkey ruled that the building sits on land not owned by the monks. The Mor Gabriel monastery, built near the Syrian border, was established in 397 by Syriac Orthodox monks, and has been in continuous use since that time, welcoming up to 20,000 pilgrims each year. But neighboring villagers brought suit against the monks, charging that they were engaged in “anti-Turkish activities” since they educate young men in the Aramaic language and in the Christian faith. The villagers also claimed ownership of the land on...

Archbishop Atallah Hanna on Wednesday condemned an attack targeting a monastery in west Jerusalem, expressing anger after extremists defiled the holy site with anti-Christian messages. In a statement, the archbishop said that “what the settlers have done is rejected, and their racism is humiliating. … They didn’t harm us, they harmed only themselves,” he added during a visit to pray at the site. “We strongly condemn any attack against holy sites for any religion; it is totally prohibited.” “Death to Christians” was daubed Tuesday in Hebrew on the outer walls of the Monastery of the Cross, an 11th-century fortress-like holy...

So, after a week in hospital, I came home, still feeling cranky, dispirited and totally useless. Feeling old and worthless, to be honest. 20 hour days in your thirties are fine. At my age, they try to kill you. The week in hospital was not pleasant. Oh, the doctors did a good job, balanced my body again, fed me well both food wise (as well as they can with a dietician watching) and intravenously and made damn sure I slept a lot, but they could not do much about the feeling of betrayal I felt with myself. I have always...

Featured Term (selected at random):MONK Originally a hermit or anchorite, but already in the early Church applied to men living a community life in a monastery, under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to a specific rule, such as that of St. Basil or St. Benedict. (Etym. Greek monachos, living alone, solitary.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Jerusalem, Israel, May 28, 2011 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- The Benedictine monks who oversee the site where Jesus miraculously fed thousands are building a new monastery to replace their earthquake-damaged building. Fr. Jeremias Marseille, OSB, a member of the German Benedictine community living there, said that their present house, built without proper foundations in the 1950s, is not safe. “The rooms have all cracks of 45 degrees in the walls and the house is moving, as we live in an area of earthquakes at the beginning of the Jordan valley,” he told Aid to the Church in Need. The second...

Featured Term (selected at random):RELIGIOUS RULE The plan of life and discipline, approved by the Holy See, under which religious live in order to grow in Christian perfection and perform the works of the apostolate proper to their institute. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Today there is a continuing legal process in effect, while the the over 1,600 year old Monastery fights for its bare survival. On 26th of January 2011 the systematic dispossession of a Syrian-Orthodox Monastery -- built in the year 397 -- Mor Gabriel in Tur Abdin in south east Turkey began Today the courts in Ankara gave the national treasury of the district town of Midyat and the Turkish forestry office a significant portion of the Monastery property. Will the bell of Mor Gabriel be silenced forever? The hope of the Monks is dwindling. First on the 26th of January...

Featured Term (selected at random):HEBDOMADARIAN The priest or religious officiating for a week in a monastery or church. A hebdomadarian sings the conventual Mass each day, intones the various canonical hours in the Divine Office, sings the orations, and gives all the necessary blessings. (Etym. Greek hebdomos, seventh.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Expropriation of Monastery Land Seen as Effort to Squash Syriacs ROME, FEB. 18, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Not even the Mongols of the 14th century, when they killed 40 monks and some 400 faithful, succeeded in making one of the most ancient Christian convents in the world disappear, but perhaps Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan of Turkey, can. This appears to be the case of the Syro-Orthodox monastery of Mor Gabriel or "Dayro d-Mor Gabriel," called "Deyrulumur" in Turkish. It is located in the region of Turabdin in the southeast of Anatolia. The convent bears the name of Mor Gabriel (634-668), bishop...

Children were "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in Pope Benedict's native Bavaria, according to a new report commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church. World A lawyer investigating accusations of abuse in a Benedictine monastery school in Ettal presented a final report to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising Monday, including 173 pages of victims' accounts of abuse. "My investigations quite clearly show that for decades up until around 1990, children and adolescents were brutally abused in the Ettal monastery," Thomas Pfister said in a statement. "The number of victims' accounts has increased significantly since the...

A cloistered nun prays at Blessed Sacrament Monastery in Anchorage last month. — Anchor photo Anchorage sisters ‘live for God’BY PATRICIA COLL FREEMANCatholicAnchor.orgOn a recent snowy morning, Blessed Sacrament Monastery in Anchorage looked especially quiet. There were no cars in the parking lot, and only a small sign on the building gave evidence of the Catholic cloister.But inside the hushed monastery, live a handful of cloistered nuns who are about the work of saving the world.They are members of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a cloistered religious order that was first established in 1807 in France by Blessed Mary Magdalene...

Printer Friendly Format Nation Monks’ thriving coffee business helps attract young men to monastery By Sheila Archambault Posted: 11/16/2009 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A small Carmelite monastery in Clark, Wyo., has seen its coffee sales take off in the last couple of years, and the growing awareness of its coffee business has brought an added benefit to the community -- more members. "In the past two years, the monks themselves have grown from six to 15 monks and all the new monks are under 25, some right out of high school," said Susie George, a neighbor of the monks who...

On What Europe Owes to Cluny "The Value of the Human Person and the Primary Good of Peace" VATICAN CITY, NOV. 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address today during the general audience held in Paul VI Hall. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, This morning I wish to speak of a monastic movement that had great importance in the Medieval centuries, and to which I have already referred in previous catecheses. It is about the Order of Cluny, which, at the beginning of the 12th century, the time of its greatest expansion, had almost...

Further proof that the Church is alive and thriving in the South: word that a new Benedictine monastery is being established in the Lone Star State. From the Dallas Morning News: Here in cow country about 70 miles southeast of Dallas, amid scattered pecan trees and sloping fields of milkweed, six monks have come to live and pray. They came from a monastery in New Mexico and, before that, from Vietnam. "It's Buddhist, isn't it?" said 65-year-old Charlie Jock, who lives several miles away, making him one of the new monastery's closest neighbors. He'd heard of it, but hadn't gone...

An overflow crowd of more than 500 people gathered at the Elysburg Monastery Monday as the bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg blessed the facility's reopened chapel. The most important people of the day, however - the 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns from Nebraska who moved into the Elysburg facility in April - were never seen by the public.... Following the 2 1/2-hour Mass, the bishop, the Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, conducted the private "enclosure" ceremony. The diocese said he moved through the building, blessing each room, then locking the door to the sisters' portion of the monastery. While they...

PRAIRIE DU SAC, Wis. — Abigail Berg acknowledged God’s undeniable call to religious life in the first week of her freshman year at The Catholic University of America.She stuck it out for two more years — and went through four majors — until she quit school and tried her vocation as a Cistercian nun at Valley of Our Lady Monastery, located on 112 acres in Prairie du Sac, outside of Madison, Wis. “It’s clear that all my life I felt a call to investigate religious life; I just had to trust God was speaking to me out of my deepest...

A cloistered monastery for contemplative nuns in Hollywood? Since 1934, the Monastery of the Angels has been operating three stoplights above Hollywood Boulevard - quietly, until a couple months ago when the Los Angeles Times blew its cover and ran a two-page, heart-tugging feature proclaiming that the Dominican monastery was in such dire financial straits it might close. Fortunately, that turned out to be not exactly the case, although the old oven in which workers baked their legendary, to-die-for pumpkin bread did break down. But almost before you could say a rosary, an anonymous donor came forward to buy...

Even though Dhimmi Watch admirably noted the recent attack on the Abu Fana Coptic monastery in Egypt, after just watching a graphic video detailing the affair on the Arabic satellite program Hiwar al-Haq—which makes clear that the raid (ghazwa) was far from being motivated by a “land dispute,” as the Egyptian authorities insist—I figured I’d do a little translating and relaying, thereby giving readers more perspective on the matter: For starters, Father Antonias, who was there, said that many “disparaging” words were hurled against Christianity by the Muslim assailants during their rampage, which, incidentally, included the destruction of altars and...