PROMOTE COOPERATION AND SOLIDARITY
BETWEEN THE MONASTERIES

I would like to offer you my best wishes for Christmas and 2025, after visiting the Notre Dame de Kibungo priory in Rwanda, where I was welcomed by Mother Prioress Philomène Kalimbanya. This is my first visit to a monastery as President of AIM.
Notre-Dame de Kibungo is a community of 14 Trappist nuns founded in 2000 in the wake of the war and ethnic problems in Eastern Congo - in other words, the very opposite of the peace and human brotherhood that are at the heart of God's message to us at Christmas. And yet, if the community of the sisters of Kibungo was founded amidst the negative values of conflict and hatred between peoples, the sisters have created a space of peace, of welcome, of prayer where other communities and many people come to meditate and become imbued with God once again. We thank them for this.
I visited Kibungo because I was in Kigali to take part in the launch of the activities of the Institut Pacte Educatif Africain (African Educational Pact Institute), which is part of the Global Educational Pact initiated by Pope François. With the help of La Francophonie, representatives of African Catholic teaching establishments were present to work together to were present to work together to improve the way education is provided. More than 250 million children have little or no schooling!
As you know, our monasteries are each involved in education in their own way, since Saint Benedict describes them as schools of the Lord, and AIM gives priority to the formation of young monks and nuns in this perspective. I warmly thank all the communities that help AIM in its mission.
At the dawn of the Holy Year 2025, may our abbeys, priories and houses be living cribs where God becomes incarnate, where humanity is comforted and hope flourishes.
Abbot Bernard Lorent Tayart, o.s.b