Praying by Hand

28. Juli 1931 – 3. Juni 2005

Father M. Basil Pennington (1931-2005) died June 3 of injuries sustained in an automobile accident 67 days earlier. Educated at Catholic schools, he entered the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, commonly known as the Trappists, in 1951 at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. He was consecrated as a monk in 1956 and ordained as a priest in 1957. He later studied in Rome at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas and Gregorian University, obtaining a licentiate in theology and another degree in canon law. Pennington was a friend of Thomas Merton and was present at the Second Vatican Council. During the 1970s, his interest in Eastern and Russian Orthodoxy led him to accept…