Hidden away in centuries-old places, sometimes visited by tourists and lovers of monastic products who observe them with curiosity, how do monks really live? A sociologist is interested in these lives, whether they are backward-looking or futuristic, which claim to anticipate eternity.
The initial idea proves to be fruitful: the study of these communities of monks, who claim to be outside of time, whose history spans the centuries, can reveal a lot about our modern world. It is by observing these lives, closed but hospitable, that we can learn lessons about their internal functioning, but also about their environment, which is that of our secularized societies.
The time of the monks as a revealer of the time of the world, such is the common thread unfolded by Danièle Hervieu-Léger. One could not have dreamed better. The author has produced an important work, devoted to the sociology of religion. Her recurring themes are memory, movement and decline. In this respect, this book represents an opportunity for synthesis, on an original terrain. She chooses to study the life of the monks, between the XIXe and the XXIe century, in France, among the Benedictines and the Cistercians, in male communities. Her choice has objective reasons: these orders are among the oldest and most classical. It also has more subjective reasons: she did not see herself investigating, as a woman, among communities of women.
The book, voluminous and fascinating, is composed of 11 chapters alternating between case studies, portraits of emblematic figures and results of interviews, always put in historical perspective. When the first two return to the refoundation of the Benedictine and Cistercian orders in XIXe century, the following chapters deal with 4 objects of tension in the XXe century: authority, asceticism, liturgy and ecumenism. A progress report allows us to approach the enclosure and the major monastic reforms at the turn of the 1960s. Finally, the last three chapters are more prospective: are monks doomed to disappear? How can we explain the relative success of the traditionalists?
In the world, but not of the world
The analysis allows us to understand in detail the life in these communities and to better grasp the initial paradox. Who are these people who are in history while already aiming for eternity? How do these people live who face a daily life of prayer, but also of studies, of work, in a perspective that may seem utopian: that of the prefiguration of the Kingdom to come?
It is impossible to summarize all the results of a harvest that is all the more abundant because it is taking place on land left largely fallow by sociologists. We learn in particular that these closed orders know how to be very hospitable at the same time, going so far as to accommodate the one who knocks at the door without any real compensation, if the latter is destitute. This hospitality takes various forms, but is valid without exception. It is a question of loyalty to the Rule of Saint Benedict and to theGospel.
One might think that these orders, which struggle to attract new vocations and whose survival is sometimes threatened (chapter 9), could be more lax in their recruitment. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The harder the times, the more selective it is, admitting only the strongest, after long periods of discernment.
We can well imagine that it is no longer a question of living in 2017 as in the Middle Ages. However, the developments on authority (chapter 3) show that communities are equipped with superiors who encourage participation, but also demand obedience. Above all, the considerations on asceticism (chapter 4) show that the real developments are accompanied by the maintenance of strong demands.
Without entering into the polemics on the liturgy, celebrated in French or in Latin, sung in Gregorian or with new music (chapter 5), it is striking to see that it is the “traditionalists” in matters of liturgy who also handle the Internet best and who communicate on the Web with the most dynamism. A somewhat ironic monk points out that, if real or virtual visitors do not understand much about it anyway, then: “it is more beautiful in Latin”!
An investigation into the fence that opens up new leads
The subject is so vast and rich that it makes you want to know more. The author focuses on prestigious cases, charismatic figures, dates that constitute turning points, in order to build typologies. This has the merit of establishing contrasts. However, we would like to read more verbatim interviews. We would also like to see cases outlined here developed, such as that of a convent that closes, another taken over by a charismatic community, two communities that merge. But the book is already over 700 pages long.
The author was right to limit the themes: the work of monks and their economic activity have already been studied by Isabelle Jonveaux. She was also right to limit her field to men only, in two classical monastic orders. In doing so, she opens up avenues to move towards other themes (study among monks, for example), towards other fields too: orders that go out more into the world, such as the Franciscans or the Dominicans. In this regard, the comparison with the “urban and unenclosed” monks of the Monastic Fraternity of Jerusalem proves enlightening. We would also like to discover the lives of religious women, and to go outside France, if only because these monastic orders are international.
Traditional and progressive: outdated labels?
Danièle Hervieu-Léger has been investigating these monks, putting together files, and has been in contact with people and places for 40 years, even though the more intense investigation took place over 5 years. This has a lot to do with the understanding and reflexivity that result. This leads to a very well-documented analysis, also mixed with strong personal commitments.
In this last register, she makes no secret to the reader of her sympathy for the reformers of the 1960s, with whom she has been in contact since the 1970s. The latter wanted to relax the rules, make the liturgy simpler, and enter into dialogue with the world. On the other hand, she expresses reservations about those she calls the “traditionalists”. These are currently enjoying relative success, while they apply the rules with more rigor, promote a complex liturgy and seem more oriented towards heaven than earth. She describes the ecumenism of Taizé, even if they are not Benedictines or Cistercians. She goes as far as Maredsous. Her enthusiasm remains strong for the tense experience of Boquen, praising the tumultuous reformer of the time who has since converted to Taoism. At the same time, she will look with a certain suspicion at Fontgombault, Barroux or Sept-Fons. Even if she admits that people who love Latin can also be generous.
Seeking to overcome the divisions in her last chapter, the author finds a kind of synthesis in the case of En-Calcat. This community would offer a fairly balanced path, between tradition and modernity. These ecologist monks, frugal, fond of slowness and supporters of alternative modes of sharing are, for her, both authentic heirs and interesting precursors.
This way of laying out divisions and ruptures does not harm the reading. After all, it is perhaps the nature of sociological analysis to establish distinctions and classifications, while putting a minimum of subjectivity into it. Some of the readers targeted by the author are doubtless not accustomed to the way sociologists work, who construct typologies, at the risk of making the unity less apparent. These readers will just as well be able to find throughout the pages the trace of a “hermeneutic of continuity and communion” (an expression of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, regarding the Vatican IIbefore becoming Pope). In fact, the work lends itself to several interpretations, so dense and complete is the work accomplished here by Danièle Hervieu-Léger.
The subtlety of her analyses and the nuances dictated by her field go far beyond her few personal prisms in favor of reformist or ecological monks. In other words, her multiple explanations rather explode the conventional labels between “traditionalists” and “progressives”, between “conformists” and “rebels”, etc. With this essential book, the author definitively shows herself for who she is: the great lady of the sociology of religion in France.