Gregory J. Polan

Gregory J. Polan, O.S.B., is the Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation. With their famous 1,500-year-old motto of Ora et Labora (‘Pray and Work’), the Benedictines are the oldest monastic order in the Church. Its headquarters are centred at the Primatial Abbey of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, where the Order’s University with its Pontifical Institute of Liturgy, and Faculties of Philosophy, Theology, and its Monastic Institute, of which Abbot Gregory serves as the Chancellor, are based as well. Abbot Gregory was invited by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to do a revision of the Grail Psalter used for the Liturgy of the Hours since 1969, which has received a recognition for use in the liturgy from the Holy See, and has now been published as The Abbey Psalms and Canticles. Abbot Gregory’s mandate as Abbot Primate ends in 2024, after which he will return to his home monastery, Conception Abbey in Missouri.