Photos

Güigüe is a very small town in Carabobo State, Venezuela. It is therefor surprising to find such a large and well designed building there. Here, novices study to become priests and spiritual retirements take place. It is very peaceful. Unfortunately, teh rainy season had not yet started, so we didn't get to see it amidst of the green.

I hadn't heard of this place until some weeks ago and yet it is the only abbey in Venezuela. This is just the view of the abbey you get when you arrive.

There is a complete view at: http://www.inkamana.org/ohio/guigue.htm, where you can see that the abbey actually is build in a form of a cross.

"The first four Benedictine Monks of the Congregation of St. Ottilien came to Venezuela on Easter Monday, April 2, 1923. Their purpose was to take over and to develop the Pilgrimage Shrine of St.Joseph and the home for poor children which had been started in Caracas by Father Santiago Machado, a Venezuelan diocesan priest. This monastic settlement was raised to the rank of conventual priory on the sixteenth of June in 1947 and became an abbey on the seventh of December in 1963. In the course of time the monks were entrusted with pastoral work in the parish of St. Benedict which had been established December 1, 1953 for the poor families which had settled in the area of the monastery. The chief tasks of the Abbey are the spiritual ministry for the pilgrims who come to the Shrine of Saint Joseph, pastoral care in the Parish of St. Benedict and the running of a school and home for the children of poor families. The Abbey has two dependent houses. The first is at Camuri Chico on the coast near Caracas where the monks run a school for children and operate a farm. The second is at El Rosal near Bogota in Colombia where the monks are in charge of a Religious Training Centre, a farm, a carpentry and metal workshop. "