No return for monks at Melleray as university students prepare to move in
Mount Melleray Abbey
Last January, the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray vacated the historic abbey for the last time.
Due to falling vocations, they moved to Roscrea on an interim basis, amalgamating with members of the former Cistercian abbeys at Mount Saint Joseph and Mount Mellifont.
Last week, the joint community decided on the location of their definitive new home.
In a statement to the Waterford News & Star, Superior ad nutum of Abbey of Our Lady of Silence, Dom Rufus Pound, said, “Last week, following a formal vote of the Conventual Chapter, the monastic community decided to relocate to Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth, as our long-term home.
“We anticipate that the transition will take place over at least the next 18 months, allowing a proper opportunity to mark our departure and to say farewell in an appropriate and respectful manner.
"We understand that this decision will bring great disappointment locally. We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the wider community for its steadfast support, friendship, and generosity over many generations."
The move away from Roscrea and into Mellifont means that there is no return to Melleray for the monks.
Bishop of Waterford and Lismore Alphonsus Cullinan expressed sadness over the decision to establish the long-term home away from Melleray.
“While many will understandably feel sorrow at this news, I wish to express my full respect for the careful and prayerful discernment undertaken by Dom Rufus and the community,” Bishop Cullinan said in a statement.
As for Melleray, it is set to become an outpost for the American Catholic higher-level institution Ave Maria University, which will be establishing a new campus on its grounds.
Based in Florida, the university will be hosting a semester-long program at Melleray, designed to provide students with academic, spiritual, and cultural formation.
Speaking to a US news network last week, Daniel Schreck, Chief Strategy Officer for Ave Maria University, said that the move into Melleray was "providential".
“We were looking to establish a signature study abroad programme in Ireland through relationships we had through the Bishop in Waterford and one of our professors," he said.
“As it turned out Melleray was being vacated after 200 years by the Cistercian order, so that opened the opportunity for us in January last year to begin to have conversations with the Cistercians."
Mr Schreck said studying at Melleray will be a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for students.
“They’re going to go there and be established in a place that has been in that community for over 200 years and hopefully give back to that community. So it’s really a joint venture between both the Irish people, the Cistercians and ourselves at Ave Maria University.
“We’re not here to be tourists, we’re not here to use Mount Melleray, we’re here to be part of the cultural patrimony of Ireland and the Cistercian community."
Course offerings at Melleray for students will include classes on Irish Spirituality, Irish Saints, Ethics, Metaphysics and Sacred Doctrine.
Students from the university will arrive at Melleray for the first time in autumn of this year.
Read our Special Report on the history and future of Mount Melleray Abbey HERE
