Pope Leo XIV received in audience on the morning of this Wednesday Dom Thomas Georgeon, abbot of the Abbey of Notre-Dame de La Trappe (France), accompanied by his entourage, according to the official bulletin of the Holy See corresponding to March 18, 2026.
The audience takes place at a particularly delicate moment for this emblematic monastic community. The Trappist monks of La Trappe—one of the historical references of the Cistercian tradition— are considering abandoning the monastery around 2028 due to the lack of vocations and economic difficulties in sustaining the complex.
Founded in the 12th century in Normandy, the Abbey of La Trappe is the original house of the Trappist reform and one of the most representative centers of contemplative life in the West. For centuries, it has been a symbol of a spirituality marked by silence, austerity, and fidelity to the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Currently, the community consists of around twenty monks, who have acknowledged the growing difficulties in ensuring the continuity of their presence in the monastery, in a context of declining vocations in Europe.
Although the religious have emphasized that the abbey is neither closed nor for sale, they have admitted that the possible departure of the community would mean the end of nearly nine centuries of uninterrupted monastic presence, which would place La Trappe before an unprecedented historical change.