The Benedictine Confederation is a union of monastic congregations that nevertheless retain their own autonomy, established by Pope Leo XIII in his brief "Summum semper" (12 July 1893), subsequently approved by his successors.

Pope Pius XII explicitly ordered this union to be regulated by a "Lex Propria", which was later revised after the Second Vatican Council.

Communities of Benedictine nuns and Religious Sisters are joined in 61 congregations and federations that are associated with the Confederation, although they do not have full membership.

The Benedictines suffered badly in the anti-clerical atmosphere at the time of Napoleon and the modern Congregations were mostly founded in the 19th century when monasticism was revived.

This explains why some houses (e.g. Monte Cassino, Subiaco, Saint Paul-outside-the-Walls (Rome), Montserrat and Pannonhalma) have unbroken histories of more than a thousand years while the Congregations to which they belong are more recent.

One immediate consequence is that there is often great diversity of observance even between houses of the same Congregation: in liturgy, timetable, pastoral involvement and habit.

Today the residential college houses an average of one hundred Benedictine monks from about forty countries, as well as other religious, diocesan priests, and lay people.

A large section on the east and west ends near the apse includes the traditional stalls for the monastic choir.

Since 1962, the church has also been the starting point of the penitential procession presided over by the Pope on Ash Wednesday, and which ends at the basilica of Santa Sabina where the first stationary mass of Lent is celebrated.