Norcia Abbey

A new monastic community was founded in 1998 by a group of American monks which was formally established the following year as a priory directly under the supervision of the Abbot Primate.

The current Benedictine community was founded in September 1998 by Cassian Folsom, an American monk of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, who served as its first prior.

The monastery was canonically established in 1999 and became an independent priory sui iuris in 2018 in the Benedictine confederation under the jurisdiction of the Abbot Primate.

The monks had originally purchased the badly dilapidated church with the hopes of turning it into a monastic grange, i.e., a satellite property of the monastery.

The monks chant the full Office in Latin and offer the Holy Mass each day in the traditional form of the Roman Rite.

Following the Rule of Saint Benedict, the monks’ schedule of prayers follows the patterns of the sun, and therefore changes slightly throughout the year as the days wax and wane.

In 2019, after breaking ground and beginning to raise the walls of their new home, the monks added a motto to the monastery's crest: Nova Facio Omnia.

A quotation from the Latin of the Book of the Apocalypse (21:5), this text evokes the New Jerusalem in all its splendor and underlines what Christ does for all who cooperate with His plan: “Behold, I make all things new!” Early in 2012 the Monks of Norcia established a brewery in a renovated warehouse.

[5] The name of the beer is “Birra Nursia”, using the Latin name for the city of Norcia and the motto of the brewery “ut laetificet cor” (that the heart might be gladdened).

The project of the monastic brewery was conceived with the hope of sharing with others the joy arising from the labor of their own hands, so that in all things the Lord and Creator of all may be glorified.