Columba Cary-Elwes

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Dom Columba Cary-Elwes,

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Biography

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Early years

Born in London in 1903, Charles Evelyn George Cary-Elwes was one of eight children of Charles and Edythe Cary-Elwes. His father and maternal grandfather, Sir John Roper Parkington, were champagne shippers, the family all speaking fluent French. He was educated by the

In 1951, he was appointed Prior of Ampleforth, and four years later, was selected to be the founding prior of the new foundation at Saint Louis, where he served until June 1967.[1] Columba left in 1968 for East Africa to conduct spiritual retreats and inquire about establishing a monastic foundation in that region. In 1968, his travels took him to Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. During 1969, he taught at a major seminary in Nairobi. In 1970, he served as French interpreter during the Pope's visit to Uganda, after which he returned to Ampleforth.

In 1972, he was "loaned" (as his Ampleforth obituary describes it),^[2] to the Benedictines of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland, to help establish a monastery in Eke, Nigeria, in 1974, where he served as Prior beginning in 1975. Columba was a close friend of the noted historian Arnold J. Toynbee, who educated several of his sons at Ampleforth. In 1986, their correspondence, edited by the Saint Louis lawyer Christian Peper, is collected in An Historian's Conscience.^[3] During this period he also helped to establish a Catholic seminary in Cameroon. In his later years, he returned to Ampleforth, but made ecumenical and spiritual renewal visits to Catholic communities and clerical establishments in the Philippines, Australia, India, and Chile. At nearly 90, he was appointed the Titular Abbot of Westminster in 1992.

Death

Dom Columba Cary-Elwes died on 22 January 1994, aged 90, at York Hospital. He was buried at Ampleforth.^[4]

Family

Columba Cary-Elwes is related to the painters

• An Historian's Conscience: The Correspondence of Arnold J. Toynbee and Columba Cary-Elwes- Monk of Ampleforth with Christian B., Peper and
  Arnold Joseph Toynbee
  (1986)
• The Beginning of Goodness (1947)
• A Simple Way of Love, edited and introduced by Cary-Elwes (1948)
• Law, Liberty and Love; A Study in Christian Obedience; Foundation of European Civilisation (1949)
• Ampleforth and its Origins. Essays ... by members of the Ampleforth Community, edited with Abbot Justin McCann, with plates by Philip Justin Maccann and Cary Elwes (1952)[5]
• The Sheepfold and the Shepherd (1956)
• China and the Cross; a Survey of Missionary History (1957)
• Monastic Renewal (1967)
• Experience with God: A Dictionary of Spirituality (1986)
• Work & Prayer: The Rule of St. Benedict for Lay People, with Catherine Wybourne. London: Burns & Oates, Turnbridge Wells (1992)

References