(1931–2005) was an American Trappist priest and leading spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, and director.
Pennington was an alumnus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he obtained a licentiate in Theology in 1959.
Pennington became known internationally as one of the major proponents of the centering prayer movement begun at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, during the 1970s.
In 2000, he was appointed superior at Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri, and later that same year he was elected abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.
He died on June 3, 2005, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from injuries sustained from a car accident.