Forty years ago, many thought there was no future for men’s religious orders in Britain. I remember someone confidently announcing, back in 1980, that “They’ll all be finished before the year 2000”. Yet now, in this second decade of the 21st century, some male orders seem to be flourishing.
I wrote recently in these pages about the growth in new female religious communities. But while women appear to be drawn to new orders, men seem more interested in older ones.
For example, the Conventual Franciscans, better known as the Greyfriars, have returned to Oxford after a 500-year absence. They also run a London parish and have a community in the coastal town of Rye and at Walsingham, home of the National Shrine of Our Lady. The Dominicans are thriving anew with noticeably large numbers of novices. The Oratorians are now at York, Cardiff, Manchester and Bournemouth, as well as London and Birmingham.
