Ambrose Southey

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Ambrose Southey (born January 22, 1923 in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside , England , † August 24, 2013 in Charnwood Forest , near Coalville , Leicestershire ) was a British Roman Catholic clergyman, Trappist , abbot and abbot general .

life and work

Kevin Southey entered the monastery of Mount Saint Bernard in 1940 and assumed the religious name Ambrose (after Ambrosius of Milan ), made solemn profession in 1945 and was ordained a priest in 1948. From 1951 to 1953 he studied canon law in Rome . He was abbot of his monastery from 1959 to 1974.

At the Trappist General Chapter in 1964, Southey was elected Vicar of Abbot General Ignace Gillet . He was given the task of preparing the 1967 General Chapter, which was about implementing the impetus for the renewal of religious life that the Second Vatican Council had given in the Decree Perfectae Caritatis in the Trappist monasteries.

At the end of the 1960s, Southey succeeded as vicar general to maintain the unity of the order. The general chapter of 1967 decided to allow services to be celebrated in the national language (instead of exclusively in Latin) and to grant the monasteries greater freedom in organizing the divine prayers . Abbot General Ignace Gillet questioned the legitimacy of these reforms and turned to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life . This step aroused displeasure in the Order. At the 1969 General Chapter, some participants suggested that the Abbot General resign. Southey was able to convince Gillet on the one hand to continue his office as Abbot General and on the other hand to allow the General Chapter the freedom to decide on reforms.

After the resignation of Abbot General Gillet in 1974, Dom Ambrose Southey was elected as his successor by a large majority. Until 1990 he remained Abbot General of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance ( Trappist ). From 1993 to 1996 he headed the Trappist Bamenda Abbey in Cameroon , and from 1996 to 1998 the Scourmont Abbey in Belgium . After that he was still the chaplain of the Trappist women in the Italian monastery of Vitorchiano . When he died in Mount Saint Bernard in 2013, he had been a monk for 70 years and a priest for 64 years.

Fonts

  • Pour que le Christ soit formé en nous. Lettres et conférences . Oka , Abbaye Notre-Dame-du-Lac, 1995.
    • Spanish: La vida monástica. Transformación en Cristo. Cartas y conferencias . Burgos, Monte Carmelo, 2008.
  • Following Christ on the way of the Regula Benedicti. The Cistercian synthesis of prayer, reading and work , in: Cistercienser Chronik 111, 2004, pp. 371–382.

literature

  • Armand Veilleux: Dom Ambrose Southey (1923–2013) . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , Vol. 2020, No. 118, pp. 65-71.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Armand Veilleux: Dom Ambrose Southey (1923–2013) . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , vol. 2020, no. 118, pp. 65–71, here p. 66.
  2. ^ A b Armand Veilleux: Dom Ambrose Southey (1923–2013) . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , vol. 2020, no. 118, pp. 65–71, here p. 67.
  3. ^ Armand Veilleux: Dom Ambrose Southey (1923–2013) . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , Vol. 2020, No. 118, pp. 65-71, here pp. 67-68.
  4. ^ Armand Veilleux: Dom Ambrose Southey (1923–2013) . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères: Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN  1779-4811 , vol. 2020, no. 118, pp. 65–71, here p. 68.
personal data
SURNAME Southey, Ambrose
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Southey, Kevin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Roman Catholic clergyman, Trappist, abbot and abbot general
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Whitley Bay, North Tyneside , England
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 2013
Place of death Charnwood Forest at Coalville , Leicestershire