Encyclopedia Dubuque
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
TRAPPISTS
TRAPPISTS. As part of his efforts to encourage the Catholic settlement of the Midwest, Bishop Mathias LORAS traveled to Ireland and the monastery in County Waterford. Here he found Cistercians of the Strict Observance. (1) Sixteen monks left "Melleray on the Mount" on July 16, 1849. Six died of CHOLERA as they journeyed north on the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Irish monks, following the rules established by St. Benedict in 580 A.D., generations later settled southeast of Dubuque.
The monastery in Ireland was called "Melleray on the Mount." "Melleray" was a name derived from "mel," a word for honey. The monks belonging to the Trappist Order were among the many people suffering the famine of 1847. Suffering persecution for seven hundred years, the monks found promise in Loras' description of a new land with so many Irish settlers nearby.
The first ordination to the priesthood was held at the New Melleray Trappist Monastery on April 1, 1933. Frater Pius Hanley, OCSO, was ordained by Archbishop Francis J.L. BECKMAN. Following WORLD WAR II the number of monks at the monastery rose substantially from an estimated twenty to over one hundred.
For most of their time in Iowa, the Trappists supplied their needs by farming. As their numbers dwindled and average age increased, they began looking for other ways of supporting themselves. The monks began making coffins in 2001 to pay the bills on the monastery’s 3,000-plus acre farm. They sold 190 their first year and in 2003 sales topped 700. Prices ranged from $695 for a simple pine box to $1,795 for the premium black walnut model that Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles picked out for himself in a “pre-need” order.
Trappists regarded death as sacred and beautiful and maintained a continuing awareness of death as a part of life not to be feared. “Keep death before one’s eyes daily,” reads one of the strictures of the Rule of Saint Benedict, by which the monks lead their lives. Building caskets is certainly one way to fulfill that mandate.
The monks, however, are not buried in caskets. They are lowered into the ground on an uncovered wooden platform.
By 1990, the Trappists had experienced a membership decline of between 30 to 40 percent in the prior twenty years. At the time, there were 42 Trappist priests and monks at the New Melleray Abbey. New members were slightly older than those in the past and the order had become less hierarchical and more democratic. While the observance of silence was dominate, newer practice called for the "right use of speech." (2)
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Source:
1. Hanson, Lyn, "Nuns, Monks Endure Mixed Growth," Telegraph Herald, December 29, 1990, p. 3
2. Ibid.