The Voice of Peace
- Abbot Cuthbert Brogan
- Jul 13
- 2 min read
Where and what is Europe? Israel and Australia have contended in Eurovision, so geography cannot be the main factor. England left the European Union, but did not leave Europe. Where can we find the commonality, the glue that defines Europe and holds it together?
The nearest I ever came to an answer to this question was during a visit to a medieval church in Slovakia. There the walls were adorned with ancient frescoes, biblical scenes and familiar saints. It could easily have been an ancient Yorskhire church – I was far from home and yet completely at home. Here was a language and culture, a milieu which was at once completely Slovak and yet completely my own. In the Catholic Faith the foundations of Europe are to be found.
Pius XII had already named St Benedict Europe’s ‘Father’ when Paul VI declared him ‘Patron Saint of Europe’, Pope Paul did so standing in the magnificent reconstruction of Monte Cassino, which had just risen from the ashes of War. But whilst admiring the glorious marble, he was also acutely aware of the graves nearby. Europe was in tatters, its peace fragile, and its future uncertain.
More than a thousand years earlier, Benedict had similarly found himself in the ruins of the Roman Empire. His project of restoration did not extend much beyond his own soul, but with the tools of prayer, work, and study he found an interior Pax, peace which drew others and spread like fire. Wherever monks took the Cross, the book, and the plough a gentle, subtle order and this mysterious ‘Pax’ followed.
Benedict’s successes were not his intention. He never intended to found Europe, or build Western civilisation, or preserve the corpus of the literature of classical civilisation. His eyes looked away from self and towards the Truth which is God. The rest fell into place. Monasteries are places of peace. Our English landscape is scattered with monastic ruins.
The monks are long gone but the peace remains, and those who lack or long for peace often frequent these ruins in search of this elusive peace. But peace is not so far from our grasp. The unity which Christ prayed for begins with each of us, and St Benedict is a fine example of the interior unity and integrity which can be ours when we truly seek God, when we are eager for the work of God - His due worship.
If Europe has a future, it must remember its past and find, amidst its own ruins and the debris of its culture, the answers to its ills. It must sink its roots again into the good news of Jesus Christ. The rest will follow.
Abbot Cuthbert Brogan
2025
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