Abbey of Regina Laudis

The Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis was founded in 1947 by Mother Benedict Duss, O.S.B. and Mother Mary Aline Trilles de Warren, O.S.B. in Bethlehem, Connecticut. This monastic foundation was one of the first houses of contemplative Benedictine nuns in the United States. Mother Benedict and Mother Mary were both nuns of the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame de Jouarre in France. Mother Benedict had grown up in Paris and studied medicine at the Sorbonne. Until the monastery of Regina Laudis gained abbatial status, it was a dependent priory of Jouarre Abbey, a monastery northeast of Paris, France.

A Protestant industrialist by the name of Robert Leather donated to the nuns land that became the heart of its present property of 400 acres (1.6 km2). Leather was a "devout Congregationalist" who cherished a pine-covered hill in town as a place of prayer, and he wanted it held intact and in perpetuity as a sacred place. A 1949 movie, Come to the Stable, starring Loretta Young, was based on the story of the nuns establishing the abbey in town (a children's hospital in the movie). The movie depicts how the nuns were taken in by Bethlehem artist Lauren Ford. "Mother ... met with many obstacles, (but) support from the Church came from many, most especially the Papal Nuncio to Paris, the future Pope John XXIII, and Cardinal Montini, who would later become Pope Paul VI," according to the abbey's website. "Through a friendship of many years Pope Paul VI offered inspired wisdom and astute practical advice, suggesting from the beginning that if the new monastery was to attract the dedication of American women, they must be encouraged to have a professional basis for their contemplative life."

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