IEADING representatives
of the Roman Catholic Benedictine Congregations joined their Anglican counterparts in a service at Westminster Abbey last Monday. The service commemorated both St. Benedict's Day and the 900th anniversary of the Abbey's foundation by the English Benedictines.
Among the Catholic Monastic heads were Dom Christopher Butler. President of the En:Y,Iith Benedictine congregations and Abbot of Dowmide: the Titular Abbot of Westminster, Dom Herbert Byrne; and the Abbots of St. Augustine's, Ramsgate: Fort Augustus. Scotland: Belmont Abbey, Herefordshire; and representatives of the Benedictine Church of St. Anselm, Rome.
Dean Abbot of Westminster gave a special address.
Notwithstandin't the reformation. special links with the Benedictine tradition have always been maintained at the Abbey. To this day there is a chapel dedicated to St. Benedict and it is traditional for a quarter peal of bells to be rung each year on March 21 — St. Benedict's Day — by the Ancient Society of Colleae Youths, a bell-ringing fraternity confined to the City of London. founded in 1637.