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Visiting Monasteries; The new tourist hotspots!
Topic Started: Thursday, 26. August 2010, 08:23 (715 Views)
Peter

Ever since becoming a Catholic I've always enjoyed the experience of visiting monasteries and churches. Not only have I taken away a feeling of consolidation that I did the right thing back in 1968 by becoming Catholic (!) but I also took away peace and tranquility from each visit as I'm sure we all have.

Over the last few years there seems to have been a remarkable change in the way that some religious orders have been operating which has left me feeling decidedly uneasy.

My wife and I used to visit Aylesford Priory in Kent in the 1970's. It was (and still is) a large pilgrimage centre and draws crowds from all over. In the old days pilgrims could wander about, take a pack lunch and use the facilities by the old tea room to eat the food that they had brought with them.

There was a large gift shop run by volunteers where there was always some religious article at a price that even the most cash strapped person could afford to buy alongside the more expensive items.

There was a pottery in which the monks made items for sale and my wife and I often used to pop in there to see an elderly lady who name was Mrs Phillips. She used to recognise us along with others who made fairly regular journeys to the place and always had time for a chat.

I suppose I'm trying to paint a true picture of how uncommercial Aylesford Priory was in the "old days" and how personal it was.

These days Aylesford Priory has the smell of a public relations company. You can't eat food in areas where they are selling it. No dogs are allowed. (Although they were never allowed before in the church areas they could always be walked on the lead in the car park and adjoining field.)

For the most part, expensive gifts only these days. Private companies renting small holdings and producing goods for sale, including a Potter who produces pottery "just like the monks used to make."

One of the biggest changes has been to rent out conference facilities to commercial businesses for seminars etc.

On the Isle of Wight and much to my horror, Quarr Abbey seems to have taken much the same route this year. You can now sign up (on-line or in person) for guided tours round the abbey given by a monk and then pop into the shop for a souvenir before going home.

Island Pulse, the on-line magazine for the Isle of Wight has said that Quarr Abbey is the new tourist hotspot on the Island and there have been quite a few "invited photo-shoots" of the place.

Quarr Abbey have a really great professional new website created by The Deep Design Company http://79.170.44.100/quarrabbey.co.uk/index.html , which appears to be running alongside their old one. At least it would be great if it wasn't so..............commercial.

Quarr Abbey along with Aylesford Priory and no doubt many others appears to have a got a very professional act together but has lost its soul, the essence of what it was all about.

I'm well aware that these days communities have to find new ways of increasing their income but surely this shouldn't be at the expense of what they're supposed to be about.

Maybe I'm just not being realistic but money does seem to be the name of the game these days.
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Rose of York
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Peter
Thursday, 26. August 2010, 08:23
I'm well aware that these days communities have to find new ways of increasing their income but surely this shouldn't be at the expense of what they're supposed to be about.

Maybe I'm just not being realistic but money does seem to be the name of the game these days.
Monasteries "need" pots of money, for the maintenance of their premises. Their communities have shrunk in terms of membership, so why can't they downsize? That is what ordinary people do if the children have left home and the parents' income has reduced due to redundancy or retirement.

A large house of the sort often bought for use as a nursing home should be adequate for a couple of dozen monks.

Keep the Faith!

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Mairtin
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Rose of York
Thursday, 26. August 2010, 09:21
A large house of the sort often bought for use as a nursing home should be adequate for a couple of dozen monks.

I've known several orders of nuns who have done exactly that, Rose, but in each case the former convents were sold off for commercial use and was thus completely lost to the community which caused a great feeling of loss among the older generation in the parishes involved.

(I'm not in any way criticising the nuns for what they did, they had no choice in the matter.)
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Peter

Rose, you make a good argument for down sizing and yes, why shouldn't monks live within their means the same as the rest of us try to do. Having said that, there's the emotional part of me that would hate to see our heritage disappear in this way, but at least religious communities could then stay true to their calling. If this scenario became reality perhaps English Heritage or The National Trust could seal a deal whereby monasteries would remain architecturally the same, inside and out as they are at present, but obviously without the monks. Visitors could then be charged an entrance fee to see a piece of how things used to be.

Even in these cash strapped times, many religious houses still continue to flourish financially by way of legacies etc and it wasn't that many years ago that one of the monks at Quarr told me that money had never been a problem for them. He was a former Guestmaster and one of the longest serving members of the community at the time.

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Gerard

It used to be part of the culture to give money to monks and nuns. My guess is that is no longer the case. hence the need to become buisiness like.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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Families who have donated country estates to the National Trust are often given jobs as custodians, and rent free use of accommodation. Monks who travel outside the monastery, doing work such as lecturing or running parishes, are not enclosed, so why do they need so much space?

The financial situation of monasteries is eased by their exemption, as registered charities, from Corporation Tax. Buckfast Abbey is sole shareholder of Chandlers Wines, who make the tonic wine and another company that run the shop, restaurant, gift shop and conference centre. The monks work as "volunteers", hence not having to pay income tax or national insurance. Chandlers and the other company donate all their profit to the Abbey charity under the Gift Aid scheme, so the company pays the tax and the state gives it to the "charity". All this information is from the abbey's accounts and trustees report, viewable on the Charity Commission website. Abbeys, being charities, pay no council tax or business rates. The minor roads leading to their premises are maintained at public expense, and most of the traffic is to the abbey. The members can use the National Health Service, ambulances, police, fire brigades, libraries, and not contribute a penny piece.

For all members of this forum know I may be living in the spirit of poverty. I still cough up, pay my way.
Keep the Faith!

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OsullivanB

Before the Dissolution English monasteries were very successful commercial entities. That's why they were dissolved, so that Henry could get his hands on their assets. Mendicant orders aside, monks expected to work for their keep. Remember St Benedict's dictum, laborare est orare - to work is to pray.

As for potter-monks, Prinknash used to make quite celebrated pottery and strove hard to continue that tradition. But if it no longer pays, then the monks have to do something else. Essentially they are self-supporting.

Downsizing seems to me to be a matter entirely for the community itself. It must be a complex decision, not least because Benedictines (and, for all I know, others) join a specific house rather than an organisation. So a monk of Ealing Abbey has entered that Abbey intending to live their for the rest of his life and foregoing the right to live anywhere else. He is, I suppose, entitled to expect that that surrender will be mirrored by a commitment to keeping that place available to him. Of course, he is a man under obedience and will do as told, but that legitimate expectation seems to me to be part ofthe mix of decision. Even more important factors will be the loss caused locally by the removal of the abbey, and the commercial viability of a move. It's only in a very general sense our business as Catholics. They are not dependent on Church funding. The advantages they enjoy from charitable status is a matter for the citizenry rather than the faithful. They don't get it just for being monks. Contemplative orders are not charities and do not have the tax advantages that go with that status.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Josephine
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Oh Peter, Peter.

Go back to the site you mentioned and scroll down to tbe bottom of the page. There you will see, among the small print, the words.....Monastic Life. Click on them and read what comes up.

You have missed something very special if you haven't read this .

JO
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Mairtin
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Thanks for pointing that out, Jo, a fascinating read.
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Rose of York
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Gerard
Thursday, 26. August 2010, 11:27
It used to be part of the culture to give money to monks and nuns. My guess is that is no longer the case. hence the need to become buisiness like.

Gerry


They have always run businesses, making wine, altar breads and honey, processing incense, farming, printing. Didn't Saint Benedict rule that religious support themselves, and forbid them to beg?

http://79.170.44.100/quarrabbey.co.uk/friendsofquarr.html

http://79.170.44.100/quarrabbey.co.uk/handsofquarr.html

http://79.170.44.100/quarrabbey.co.uk/donations.html

When people who have had little or no contact with monks and nuns ask me why they don't do "something useful" instead of "spending all their time praying" I point out that they can hardly spend all their time praying when they have work to do, to support themselves.

I do my best to give the following information:
Religious orders run businesses.
Members include professionally qualified people including doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers.
Religious orders run hospices, residential and nursing homes, and schools Some members write books, for which the order is paid. Some are lecturers, and some run parishers. Religious provide build and run hospitals and schools in countries whose governments do nothing for poor people.
The first person to introduce education for Africans was a monk (St Daniel Comboni).

That scotches the daft idea that nuns and monks are simple souls. :rofl:

Final bit of information imparted to critics:
People who want to spend all or most of their free time praying are entitled to, nobody would question why any other people play sports, go to the pub, or walk around shops every day. One of these days my listender might be thankful people are praying for all of us.
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
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Gerard
Thursday, 26. August 2010, 11:27
It used to be part of the culture to give money to monks and nuns. My guess is that is no longer the case. hence the need to become buisiness like.

Gerry
Until the Reformation Saint Catherines Priory in Lincoln ran a business, a farm a few miles long. The community was the major employer in the city and surrounding area. Their business supported their work as mendicants, and financed the provision of a leper colony outside the city gates. In the seventies a hotel owner demolished an archway on his land, because it was too low for his motorhome to have access. On either side of the archway there was a water stoup, one for the lepers to wash and one for their drinking water.

Henry VIII put paid the St Catherine's priory, leaving the peasants with no poor relief or medical care.
Keep the Faith!

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Gerard

Rose

Do you know any businesses run by Franciscans?

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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OsullivanB

Franciscans are not monks. They are mendicant friars, as are Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians. They do not run businesses. Monks always have.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Rose of York
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Franciscans used to offer Bed, Breakfast, lunch and dinner in their guest house at Hazelwood Castle, near York. When I stayed there, there were no conditions attached, regarding group or individual retreats. I shared a room with three other women, all strangers to me. The fixed price was reasonable. Pffering a service in return for a fixed price is a business, but the turnover would not have been sufficient to maintain the property and grounds. If I remember correctly at least two of the monks were lecturers. I clearly remember a monk in a well tailored habit, walking round the grounds smoking. I was flabbergasted! In the evenings one of the brothers would drive into town to hire a video, and why not? It was not as though they were spending a fortune on a bit of leisure.
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
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OsullivanB
Thursday, 26. August 2010, 17:11
Franciscans are not monks. They are mendicant friars, as are Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians. They do not run businesses. Monks always have.
Tongue in cheek postings. Dominicans do run businesses, they are known as parishes. :rofl: Dominicans are a brainy lot, I bet their "businesses" are well managed.
Keep the Faith!

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