The Benedictine Commission on China (BCC) brings together representatives from Benedictine monasteries throughout the world to exchange information about the work of their communities related to China and to discuss cooperation on projects for China. Because of the pandemic, the meeting this year was held online.

Pope Francis accepts the resignation of Missionary Benedictine Bishop Marian Eleganti OSB, Auxiliary of Chur.

Ampleforth, the largest Benedictine community in the United Kingdom, held their abbatial election on 5 January, selecting Dom Robert Igo. Since 2005, Abbot Robert has been Prior at the Monastery of Christ the Word in Macheke, Zimbabwe. Story and links here.

The Conventual Priory of Prince of Peace at Tigoni (Kenia) was raised to an Abbey, 42 years after its foundation. The monks elected Fr. John Baptist Oese Imai OSB, hitherto Conventual Prior, their first abbot.

Dom Nicholas Wetz has been elected Abbot of Downside Abbey and has announced that the community will leave Stratton-on-the-Fosse.

Directly before his election, Abbot Marion Qui-Thac Nguyen was a resident of Collegio Sant'Anselmo as he pursued a doctorate in Monastic Theology at the Pontifical University. Read his remarkable story here.

Fr. Julian Maria Schaumlöffel, O.S.B., the new president of the International Commission on Benedictine Education, is from Königsmünster Abbey in Meschede, Germany. Read the full biography and story here.

The newly-founded monastery of St Pachomius in N'nango was attacked on 12 May by members of an Islamist terrorist militia.

Abbot Christopher Jamison has partnered with a few of his friends to offer an online resource for people living through the Covid-19 crisis.

The convent of the Styrian Benedictine abbey elected the 56-year-old Graz native to the new abbot on Tuesday, 10 March 2020. Story with German-language links.