Note relevant to current Stanbrook series

First, a heartfelt thank you to 'Gertrude' of CP&S for her kindness in having sent me a copy of the 2011 Benedictine Year Book. It arrived this morning and the first perusal shows details that will enable me to be as up-to-date as possible in the remaining posts of this series. I think about two posts will cover everything I want to say, for the moment at any rate!

'STANBROOK 6' WILL FOLLOW TOMORROW AFTERNOON (It's been a busy day here clearing up after Thursday's plaster-boarding event and in any case I can see from stats that people are still catching up on what I've already posted.) I'm pleased that the subject generates so much interest, but have to plead the time consuming nature of finding stuff on the Internet, of which there seems relatively little, apart from news and many pictures of the new monastery in Wass. Quite a lot about that, but very little comment on the Catholic blogosphere about the build up to the move. Father Tim Hermeneuticalness had two posts (2nd and 13th Feb 2008, a few months before I started this blog) which attempted to draw attention to the Abbey's possible fate; NLM picked up on Fr Tim's posts but after receiving no comments, didn't pursue it thereafter. Catholic Church Conservation had a one line alert, with no explanation; and the BCEW site had a page saying the Community would be moving. When I checked yesterday, the page had been removed. (Perhaps I got that information from DT at Holy Smoke.). And as far as I can see they have not reported on it since.

It seems that Stanbrook had already slipped below the radar of Catholic consciousness, even before the 2002 announcement by Abbess Joanna that the community intended to move. Catholics just don't know about its past glories anymore, and I'm afraid that there are some who couldn't care a fig about their ignorance of it. I was astonished when a dear friend, commented on an early post in this series, that she had never heard of Stanbrook. I know for a fact that she WOULD have cared had she known about it.

So Stanbrook 6 will deal with how, when and why, the English Catholic Church began the inexorable loss of this most valuable female Benedictine part of her heritage. Sure as eggs, it didn't begin when the 22-strong Stanbrook community decided they wanted to go 'green'.