Benedictine Abbey of Wisques Returns Back to Traditional Rite -- Colonization From Fontgambault with Bishop of Arras’ Approval

(Paris) The Bishop of Arras, Boulogne and Saint-Omer, Jean-Paul Jaeger and the Abbot Dom Jean Pateau of the Benedictine Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault, have sealed the takeover of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Paul at Wisques. The Benedictine Abbey of Wisques is being repopulated by monks from Fontgambault at the end of the year. Thus this will also allow that this Abbey will return to the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.

As previously reported , a group of monks from Fontgombault has already spent several weeks in January at Wisques to consider making a takeover concrete. The main point of consideration are difficulties in  ensuring the survival of the Abbey of Saint Paul Wisques by its own power. The average age of the monks in Wisques is more than 75 years.

The abbey was founded in the second half of the 19th Century by Fontgombault. For this reason Fontgombault now been asked to ensure  with monks there the continued existence of the Abbey of Wisques and start with a new beginning of the abbey. Towards the end of the year monks from the Abbey Fontgombault will colonize and form a new convent with 18 monks, such as the website of the diocese of Arras, Saint-Omer Boulanger has announced. The new convent will elect its own abbot and prior.

The Abbey of Wisques thus joins the ranks of the monasteries of a tradition in which the  Holy Mass and the whole Divine Office,  the entire liturgy will be maintained in the traditional form and Gregorian Chant.

Link katholisches….