Monasteries & Monks

Ora et Labora — Pray and Work

The oldest and most influential monastic order in the West. Benedictine monasteries preserved classical learning through the Dark Ages, pioneered agriculture across Europe, and gave the Church some of her greatest popes and theologians. Their Rule remains the most widely followed monastic rule in history.

Pax et Bonum — Peace and Goodness

Founded by the beloved St. Francis, the Franciscans embraced radical poverty and preached the Gospel to the poor. They became the great missionaries of the medieval and early modern world, evangelizing Asia, Africa, and the Americas. St. Bonaventure and Blessed Duns Scotus were among their greatest scholars.

Veritas — Truth

The Order of Preachers was founded to combat heresy through preaching and scholarship. St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in Church history, was a Dominican. The order produced some of the finest universities and intellectual traditions of the medieval world, and continues to be a powerhouse of Catholic theology.

Cistercian simplicity and silence

A reform movement within Benedictine monasticism, the Cistercians sought a stricter observance of the Rule. Under St. Bernard of Clairvaux, they became one of the most powerful forces in medieval Europe. Their austere architecture — white walls, simple lines — is among the most beautiful ever produced by Western Christianity.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam — For the Greater Glory of God

Founded at the height of the Protestant Reformation, the Society of Jesus became the Church's greatest intellectual and missionary force of the modern era. Jesuits founded hundreds of universities, mapped the stars, translated the Scriptures into dozens of languages, and brought the faith to China, Japan, India, and the Americas.