Community vision at Camaldoli

The Camaldoli monastic community, near the Tuscan hill town of Arezzo in central Italy, is a place of great natural beauty. Immersed in a lush forest around the foothills of the Apennine mountain range, it will very shortly be celebrating the one thousandth anniversary of its foundation by Benedictine monk, St Romuald, who drew deeply on the ancient monastic traditions of both East and West.
With a vocation to draw together both the solitary life of the hermit and the community dimension of sharing a lived faith, the Camaldoli community has increasingly developed this vision as a place of encounter between peoples of different backgrounds and faith traditions. The emblem of the community depicts two doves drinking from the same chalice, a symbol of communion within diversity, nourished by a relationship with the one God and over recent decades this openness to others has made it into an important centre for dialogue with people of all faiths and different Christian denominations.
Philippa Hitchen talks to Fr Peter Hughes, an Anglican priest from Australia who has become a member of the Camaldoli community and teaches ecumenical studies at several Pontifical universities...

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