From Canadian roots to his forever home on the Hilltop, the journey of Abbot Isaac Murphy, O.S.B., to becoming the sixth abbot of Saint Anselm has been impressive, impactful, and filled with devotion.
It was March of 1990 when Thomas Shannon Murphy first visited Saint Anselm, arriving on Palm Sunday weekend as he contemplated entering monastic life.
“Before I entered the church, I walked around the quad, and even though I was a total stranger, several students said hello to me as I was walking around,” he recalls. “So it struck me that it was a very friendly place.”
Quickly, Saint Anselm began to feel like home. And he realized it was a place where he could devote himself to his monastic calling and his vocation for teaching.
Abbot Isaac Murphy, O.S.B., had considered monastic life closer to home in Canada, at the Benedictine Priory of Montreal, and had grown up not far from the Saint Benoit du Lac abbey in Quebec.
“They’re both more contemplative houses,” he says. “So there was a tension because I wanted to do two things. I wanted to teach, that was an instinct that I had, and I wanted to be a monk, and until I came to Saint Anselm that very afternoon, I didn’t realize I could do both.”
For the next three decades, Abbot Isaac experienced nearly every aspect of the college, first as a student and novice monk, and then as a faculty member and prior of the Abbey. Those were followed by administrative positions, including the vice president for academic affairs and executive vice president.
Then, in April 2024, Abbot Mark Cooper, O.S.B., ’71, H.D. ’04 was required to submit his resignation for his 75th birthday, Abbot Isaac was elected the sixth major superior of the Saint Anselm Abbey. In the process, he made history as the first non-ordained abbot in the world since Saint Benedict (480- 547) himself.
While he could not imagine his life’s journey would include a trail-blazing path within the Church, in many ways Abbot Isaac, a quiet and humble Benedictine monk, is the ideal candidate to be the first non-ordained leader of a monastic community in the U.S.
“I'm happy and proud to be the abbot,” he told the National Catholic Reporter, which reported on the significance of the election last summer.
September 27, 2024
GROWING UP IN CANADA
Abbot Isaac was born in Montreal in 1963 and raised in the city of Sherbrooke, located in southern Quebec. His father, Douglas, was a physics teacher, and his mother, Rachel, was a credit officer. He was raised with his brother, Eric. Later, following his parents’ divorce, his father married Johane, and he has a halfbrother, Shane.
When it came time to attend college, Abbot Isaac chose St. Francis Xavier University, his father’s alma mater, a primarily undergraduate residential college in Nova Scotia. He graduated at the age of 20 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.
He enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario to pursue his master’s degree, but at the same time, he was contemplating monastic life. A chaplain at Queens told him about a retreat at the Benedictine Priory in Montreal, which he attended—and then stayed for a year.
However, he was not ready to enter the monastery full time and instead decided to leave the Priory and work in Ontario.
When he was ready to return to monastic life after three years in Ontario, the Benedictine Priory had closed. Then a friend told him about Saint Anselm Abbey in New Hampshire.
“And I fell in love,” he remembers. “That first afternoon walking around the quad, I said, ‘This is where I want to be.’”
JOINING THE SAINT ANSELM FAMILY
Abbot Isaac returned that fall on a student visa. He took the name Isaac as a novice in 1992, and he professed simple vows as a monk of Saint Anselm Abbey in 1993, and then solemn vows in 1996.
He earned his master’s in political science from the University of Chicago in 1998, and his Ph.D. in political science 10 years later. He has lectured in the Saint Anselm politics department and the humanities program (both Portraits of Human Greatness and Conversatio) since 2001, only now taking a pause because of his new role and unpredictable schedule. While not inclined to a theatrical teaching style, Abbot Isaac is nonetheless passionate about the study of politics, a field that is a large part of the college’s fabric. He has helped educate students from Gen X to Gen Z—often with a quick wit and deadpan delivery that can surprise those who do not know him well.
“I used to give the opening lecture for (first year) Conversatio, and it’s their first few days of class,” he recalls. “And I would make these jokes in the lecture. But there’s no drum roll. Three or four times, I would make jokes, and they’re all just looking at you. But then I made a joke about the monastic vows. I said, ‘Yeah, no Rolex or girlfriend for me,’ and that was finally a joke that they got. ‘Oh, this is a joke. This is funny.’”
With a comedian’s timing and a Canadian’s sense of etiquette, Abbot Isaac is remarkably disarming, a quality that makes him well-suited for this historic role.
What you may not know about Abbot Isaac …
● Named Thomas Shannon Murphy at birth by his parents, Douglas Murphy and the late Rachel Dionne, he followed the tradition in his father’s family by using his middle name as his given name, so he was known as Shannon throughout his young life. He took the name Isaac when entering the Saint Anselm Abbey. And when he became a U.S. citizen in 1993, he legally changed his name to Isaac Shannon Murphy.
● Born in Montreal, and raised in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Abbot Isaac is a native French speaker, fluently bilingual, having spoken English and French since he was a boy. He is a hockey fan and, sorry, Bruins fans, his team is the Canadiens.
● In his 35 years on the Hilltop, he has held eight distinct roles at the college. Prior to being elected abbot, then-Br. Isaac was a Saint Anselm student, a faculty member, the Abbey prior (second-in-command), the vice president of academic affairs, the executive vice president, and member of the board of trustees. In his role as abbot, he also is chancellor of the college and chair of the member monks of the Saint Anselm College Corporation.
● Before choosing to enter monastic life, he was drawn to studying politics. He holds a bachelor’s in political science from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, where he graduated at the age of 20, and a master’s and a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago.
● Abbot Isaac maintains a longstanding blog (brotherisaac.wordpress. com), where he shares reviews and insights of the Saint Anselm Abbey’s evening table reading and other interesting stories from the monastery. Evening supper in the monastery is received in contemplative silence, while a reader shares the latest chapters of the selected reading, which can range from religious works such as Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 2, to nonfiction such as Endurance: Shackelton’s Incredible Journey.
THE ABBATIAL ELECTION
In the winter of 2024, Abbot Mark announced that he would resign for his 75th birthday, rather than seek an additional term. The abbatial election was set for April 29-30, with all monks in solemn vows for seven years and at least 30 years of age eligible to be elected. All monks in solemn vows in good standing were allowed to vote in the election.
The process of choosing an abbot is similar to the selection of a pope; rather than the College of Cardinals, it is members of the Chapter of Saint Anselm Abbey (“capitulars”) who nominate and vote on qualified candidates, with a twothirds majority required to be elected to the high office, at least for the first three rounds of voting.
Between Abbot Mark’s election in 2012 and his resignation 12 years later, there had been a significant change: Pope Francis announced that non-ordained brothers could lead religious communities with Vatican permission. In the pope’s rescript from the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, published in 2022, it was stated that the approval for appointing or electing a brother would be given “discretionally and in individual cases.”
Two years later, it was the Benedictine monks of Saint Anselm who made history by choosing Br. Isaac Murphy. The election was suspended while a formal approval was sought from the Vatican. The abbatial election was concluded in June 2024 after permission was received from the Holy See, the supreme body of government for the Catholic Church.
Still, there have been plenty of canonical and liturgical details to “puzzle out,” as Abbot Isaac puts it.
“It appears that Pope Francis was willing to say ‘Avante,’ go ahead, without having figured everything out,” Abbot Isaac says. “And some of the puzzles are actually head-scratchers, you don’t ultimately know what the answer will be, but this was an instance where the Church said, ‘Let’s learn by doing’.”
Understanding Rescript
In Canon Law for a thousand years, it had been required for a men’s religious order that has both ordained and non-ordained members that the major superiors be priests. However, in 2022, at the request of the Benedictines and the Franciscans and several other religious orders, Pope Francis issued a rescript that allowed for an exception to be made to Canon Law on this requirement, so long as a twothirds vote was achieved and that individual permission was sought from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
While Br. Isaac attained the two-thirds threshold in voting on April 30, 2024, the abbey had to wait for confirmation of the election until approval was given from Rome six weeks later. In the two years since the rescript was issued, major superiors in other religious orders such as the Franciscans and the Congregation of Holy Cross have been elected and confirmed, but Abbot Isaac is the first abbot of any monastic order to be elected and confirmed. While no major problems have arisen for the non-ordained major superiors, many puzzling questions do arise. In addition to making a distinction between celebrating and presiding at Mass, here are some unresolved puzzles:
- What is the formal title for a non-ordained abbot: Right Reverend or Right Venerable?
- Is a non-ordained abbot an ordinary and/or a prelate or neither?
- Can a non-ordained abbot confer priestly faculties, or issue dimissorial letters, or letters of suitability for a priest?
- Can a non-ordained abbot wear a miter?
With the rescript, Pope Francis was willing to allow for these topics to be addressed as they are confronted by the non-ordained major superiors. Famously, Saint Benedict himself was a non-ordained abbot
The monks also are working through how best to handle special liturgies like Christmas Mass or Holy Week services, which traditionally are presided over by the abbot. For such occasions, Abbot Isaac has presided over the service, while an ordained priest has celebrated the mass, similar to Pope Francis when his health made it difficult to stand for long periods of time, or when a bishop is “in choir.”
At Saint Anselm in the early 1970s, Abbot Gerald F. McCarthy, O.S.B. ’36 would on occasion preside over the service while the prior, the then Fr. Joseph J. Gerry ’50, celebrated important masses.
The Saint Anselm Abbey is part of the American Cassinese Congregation, a group of Benedictine monasteries primarily located in the United States. In addition to being the sponsoring order of Saint Anselm College and Saint Raphael Parish in Manchester, N.H., the Abbey also sponsors Woodside Priory School, a college preparatory school in California, which currently has three members of the Saint Anselm monastic community in residence.
Following the momentous vote, the Abbey community stood for a photo in the Old Choir Chapel where moments earlier they had chosen their brother, Isaac. However, because there was still the need to consult with Rome on the decision, the new abbot could not be revealed.
Abbot Isaac, appearing three rows deep in the middle of the photo (below), does not stand out from his confreres. “I don’t believe you can tell from the photo, taken in the Old Choir Chapel, the site of the Election Chapter, that I was the secret abbot,” he wrote in his blog.
It was a fitting “introduction” for someone who eschews the fanfare that could come with the office, while at the same time quietly assuming the mantle.
As the spiritual leader of the community, and father of the monastery, Abbot Isaac has only grown in his reverence for the role he has been given.
“There’s an irony to being abbot, because you’re a monk for 30 years, and you never think you’re going to be the abbot, and you realize the extraordinary legitimacy of the role of the abbot in a monastery, especially in our house,” he reflects. “And then, unexpectedly, you find yourself the occupant of that role. So I find that ironic.”
“People ask me if I like being the abbot, and that’s not the right question,” he continues. “There are things I like about being the abbot. There are things I'm less crazy about being the abbot, but I love being a monk. And I happen to be the one that was elected—I still love being a monk.”