| Ealing Abbey | |
|---|---|
| The Church and Abbey of Saint Benedict of Nursia | |
.jpg) The Abbey Church – front | |
  Ealing Abbey Location with the Borough of Ealing | |
| 51°31′10″N0°18′31″W / 51.519477°N 0.308655°W /51.519477; -0.308655 | |
| OS grid reference | TQ1742781453 |
| Location | Ealing, London |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Website | ealingmonks |
| History | |
| Founded | March 1897 (1897-03) |
| Founder | Cardinal Herbert Vaughan |
| Dedication | Saint Benedict of Nursia |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade II |
| Designated | 19 January 1981 |
| Architect | Frederick Walters[1][2] |
| Style | Perpendicular Gothic |
| Administration | |
| Province | Westminster |
| Archdiocese | Westminster |
| Deanery | Ealing |
| Clergy | |
| Archbishop | Most Rev. Vincent Nichols |
| Abbot | Reverend Dominic Taylor O.S.B. |
TheAbbey of Ealing is aRoman CatholicBenedictinemonastery located onCastlebar Hill inEaling, England. It is part of theEnglish Benedictine Congregation.
The shrine is dedicated toSaint Benedict of Nursia. In 2020, the Abbey had fourteen residential monks.[3]
The monastery atEaling was founded in 1897 fromDownside Abbey, originally as a parish in theArchdiocese of Westminster. It was canonically erected as a dependentpriory in 1916 and raised again to the rank of independent conventual priory in 1947.
Pope Pius XII raised the building to the status of anabbey in 1955.
The architect of the Abbey Church, aGrade II Listed building, wasF A Walters. Two or three bays in the nave were open by 1899 and part of the monastery in use by 1905. By 1915 the sanctuary and Lady Chapel together with more bays were completed. The west end together with the four western bays were completed by 1934 by Edward John Walters, the son of F A Walters.[4]
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Two bombs damaged the church in 1940. The first destroyed the organ chamber and the War Memorial Chapel. The second destroyed the east end, including the sanctuary and choir. Only two stained glass windows survived, although damaged.[5]
Restoration of war damage was started in 1957 and completed by 1962. The church was enlarged and the transepts completed byStanley Kerr Bate. The Monks Choir beyond the crossing and Lady Chapel were added in 1996-98 to the designs of SirWilliam Whitfield.
The singlehammerbeam nave roof has a painted decoration, with the monograms IHC and SB (for St Benedict).
The large west window, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin attended by the heavenly host, is byBurlison and Grylls.[4] The window in the south transept, a memorial to victims of two world wars, is byNinian Comper and William Bucknall (c.1960). It depicts a beardless Risen Christ and Saints David, George, Andrew and Patrick.
There is a painting of Peter's Denial of Christ byJusepe de Ribera.
One of the main apostolates of the Abbey is running a major parish in Ealing centred on the Abbey Church ofSaint Benedict where both the parish and monasticliturgies take place.
Ealing Abbey Choir of boys' and men's voices sings at the Sunday ConventualMass. The choir appeared in theBBC television programmeSongs of Praise in 2005.
The Abbey has an active programme of music recitals, which include the choirs and the organ.[6] Occasional concerts by other choirs are also held.[7]
The Lay Plainchant Choir gives lay people the opportunity to practise and sing chant. The choir provides opportunities for workshops and training. The choir has weekly rehearsals and sings monthly at a Sunday Mass. Those members available also sing periodically at a local care home for elderly people suffering from dementia.[8]
The monks of Ealing accept clerical and lay men as guests in the monastery, on the understanding that guests will attend morning mass and evening vespers with the monks. Residential and non residential guests are welcome at the sung liturgy of the hours in the Abbey Church and the monks have a house for guests and retreatants.
A major work of the Abbey in the past has been teaching and administration inSt Benedict's School, founded as Ealing Priory School in 1902 by Sebastian Cave.[4] This is an independent day school for boys and, since 2007, girls at both the junior and senior levels. There is also a small co-educational nursery. Since 1987 the Abbey has engaged alayheadmaster for the school having previously provided the headmaster from foundation. In 2012 the trust of St Benedict, Ealing created a new charitable trust, St Benedict's School, and passed school administration to a newboard of governors. As a result, members of the monastic community are more free to choose different apostolates. The Abbey also has close links with the nearby girls' schoolSt Augustine's Priory, a former convent school.
In April 2006, civil damages were awarded jointly against David Pearce, a former head of the junior school at St Benedicts, and Ealing Abbey in theHigh Court in relation to an alleged assault by Pearce on a pupil while teaching at St Benedict's School in the 1990s, althoughcriminal charges were dropped.[9] Pearce was charged in November 2008 with 24 counts ofindecent assault, sexual touching and gross indecency with six boys aged under 16, relating to incidents before and after 2003, the date when a new offence of sexual touching was created.[10][11] Pleading guilty atIsleworth Crown Court to offences going back to 1972, Pearce was jailed for eight years in October 2009, subsequently reduced to five years, for sexual abuse offences at the school from 1972 to 1992 and for one offence in 2007 after he had ceased to work in the school.[12][13]
The conduct of the Ealing monastic community, as trustee of the St. Benedict's Trust, was examined by theCharity Commission, which found it had failed to take adequate measures to protect beneficiaries of the charity from Pearce.[14][15]
In March 2011, Dom Laurence Soper, a former Abbot of Ealing Abbey,[16] was arrested on child abuse charges relating to the period when he was a teacher at, and thebursar of, St Benedict's School.[17] In 2016, he was arrested in Kosovo and extradited to the UK to face trial.[18] In December 2017, following a 10-week trial, Soper was found guilty on 19 counts ofchild sexual abuse including buggery, indecency with a child and indecent assault.[19] He was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.[20]
Following these incidents and other alleged offences, Abbot Shiperlee commissioned a report fromLord Carlile of Berriew with a view to making recommendations on the School's governance.[21] As a result of the changes made theIndependent Schools Inspectorate said in its 2013 inspection report that the pastoral care at St Benedict's was excellent.[22]
In 2018-2019, theIndependent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was investigating institutional failures to protect children from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, including complaints about Catholic schools and specifically investigations at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's school. The Pope's representative in Britain, archbishop Edward Adams, refused to co-operate with the enquiry.[23]
In February 2019, Martin Shipperlee, abbot of Ealing Abbey, resigned over a failure to investigate child sexual abuse allegations.[24]
The monks of Ealing also run the Benedictine Institute, which was originally suggested in 1986 by Francis Rossiter, the Abbot, and opened in 1992 by Laurence Soper, then Abbot. The present Abbot, Martin Shipperlee, has continued his support since his election in 2000. The Institute, which is endorsed and supported by theArchdiocese of Westminster, has developed and provides a Liberal Arts programme of adult education and a programme of Sacred Liturgy, with some officially validated courses. The studies pursued now focus uponSacred Liturgy and the Liberal Arts, including theology[25] (go to directory of institutions) and both modern andclassical languages, of which theLatin summer school has become a regular feature of the annual programme.
The Benedictine Institute, an umbrella for The Liturgy Institute of England and Wales (Institutum Liturgicum),[26] St Bede Library, Ealing Abbey Pottery and London Spring are housed in Overton House, aVictorian mansion property in Castlebar Road adjacent to the Abbey built by John M. Bartholomew[citation needed], son of the founder ofJohn Bartholomew and Son, the map-maker and publisher of atlases; the name of "J.M. Bartholomew" features in some carved stones in the walls of the garden. The property was purchased byDownside Abbey in 1930 and sold to Ealing Abbey upon its independence from Downside in 1955.[citation needed]
The St Bede library contains three main collections for undergraduate liberal studies and graduate study in theology and liturgy, based on a collection assembled in Oxford, London and Rome from 1978 to 1992. These were subsequently supplemented by purchase and gift, in particular by donations from members of theAlcuin Club.[27]
From 2002 until his retirement in 2015 the Institute's principal and head of Liturgy, James Leachman, served as professor and later as tenured professor of Liturgy at thePontifical Institute of Liturgy at Sant Anselmo in Rome. Throughout this period he directed the Institute's work; since 2010 Fr Daniel McCarthy OSB has shared much of the teaching and administration of the Liturgical Institute.[28] The UK arm of the project, Appreciating the Liturgy (based on theencyclicalEcclesia de Eucharistia),[29] founded and directed by James Leachman and Daniel McCarthy, a monk ofSt. Benedict's Abbey inAtchison, Kansas, has been housed since 2009 in the former "Scriptorum" at the Centre, originally established by Bernard Orchard in 2003.[30]
The Centre publishes the periodicalBenedictine Culture twice each year.[31]
Ealing Abbey was the home for parts of their careers of various notable monks.
Bernard Orchard, thebiblical scholar, was a distinguished monk of Ealing.[32]
Between 1933 and 1939,David Knowles, the monastic historian and laterRegius Professor of Modern History at theUniversity of Cambridge resided there and conducted the research for hismagnum opusThe Monastic Order in England.[33]
Cuthbert Butler also lived at Ealing following his retirement as Abbot of Downside from 1922 until his death in 1934.[34]John Main, a proponent of Christianmeditation, whose methods are now fostered by theWorld Community for Christian Meditation, was a monk of the Ealing community in the period 1959–1970 and 1974–1977.[35]
In September 2011, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered an apostolic visitation of Ealing Abbey. The Abbey's safeguarding policies and procedures formed part of the remit of the visitors.[36]
The following monks have served as Prior and, since elevation to the status of Abbey on 26 May 1955, Abbot:[37]
| Tenure | Office | Incumbent | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1916 to 1925 | Prior | Wulstan Pearson | Consecrated as the firstCatholic Bishop of Lancaster, 25 February 1925 |
| 1925 to 1935 | Prior | Benedict Kuypers | |
| 1935 to 1938 | Prior | Edward Green | Headmaster ofEaling Priory School 1917–1919 |
| 1938 | Prior | Mark Pontifex | |
| 1938 to 1945 | Prior | Stanislaus Chatterton | |
| 1945 to 1946 | Prior | Ambrose Agius | Member of Ealing Community at independence from Downside, December 1947 |
| 1946 to 1955 | Prior | Charles Pontifex | Member of Ealing Community at independence from Downside, December 1947; appointed as the first Abbot |
| 1955 to 1956 | Abbot | Charles Pontifex | Resigned following a car crash; died 1976 |
| 1956 to 1967 | Abbot | Rupert Hall | Headmaster ofEaling Priory School 1939–1945; member of Ealing Community at independence from Downside, December 1947; died 1974 |
| 1967 to 1991 | Abbot | Francis Rossiter | |
| 1991 to 2000 | Abbot | Laurence Soper | Arrested in 2011 on child abuse charges[17] and subsequently imprisoned. |
| 2000 to 2019 | Abbot | Martin Shipperlee | Resigned over a failure to investigate child sexual abuse allegations[38] |
| 2019 | Abbot | Domingo Taylor |
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| Independent houses | |
|---|---|
| Dependent houses | |
| Schools | |
| Former houses | |
| Churches | |
