In 20 Years, 91 Monasteries Have Closed — None Among Those Whose Office Is Exclusively in Latin
In 2026 alone — a year not yet finished — the Grande-Trappe de Soligny (Orne), the Carmel of Compiègne (Oise), and Notre-Dame du Port du Salut (Mayenne) have all closed.
Sociologist Isabelle Jonveaux has examined Catholic contemplative monasteries and published her findings in La Vie.
Over the past twenty years, nearly a third of monasteries (approximately 30%) have closed. Women's monasteries have been proportionally harder hit: 32% of them have closed, compared to 21% of men's monasteries. And the pace is accelerating: until 2015, there were fewer than four closures per year on average. That figure now stands at around ten per year.
Carmels have seen 40% of their number close in twenty years (34 out of 85). The proportions are similar among the Poor Clares (approximately 40% closure) and the Visitation Sisters (30%). The Trappists are also facing a high rate of closure (36.4%). The Dominicans (8%) and the Benedictines — men and women combined — (18%) are comparatively less affected.
A particularly striking finding of this study is that the crisis has not affected monasteries uniformly.
In 2007, there were 244 French-language monasteries, 36 mixing French and Latin, and 23 monasteries using Latin exclusively. [Rorate Note: this includes those using the new rite, such as Saint Peter and Saint Cecilia in Solesmes.]
- - Among monasteries whose office was conducted in French in 2007, 34% have closed.
- - That figure falls to 19% for those using both French and Latin.
- - It drops to 0% for those whose office was exclusively in Latin.
