Michelle Loubon

Born in George­town, Guyana, Fr Hilde­brand Greene, for­mer ab­bot, made Mt St Bene­dict, St John's, monastery his home.

Greene, 74, passed away at 4.25 pm on Tues­day from kid­ney fail­ure, at Mt St Bene­dict where he had lived and tak­en his Vow of Sta­bil­i­ty. Greene had served as ab­bott for 16 years (1979 to 1995). Asked about his con­tri­bu­tion, Ab­bot John Pereira said Greene, a Bene­dic­tine monk, was a strong ad­vo­cate of in­ter-re­li­gious di­a­logue. He al­so made ref­er­ence to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the Catholic News–Ab­bot Hilde­brand Greene finds gold in Guyana–(Jan­u­ary 27, 2008) in which he had al­lud­ed to Greene's pen­chant for in­ter-re­li­gious di­a­logue.

Pereira said, "He had a broad ap­proach to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. He would draw from dif­fer­ent sources in terms of what was ed­i­fy­ing. He was open to peo­ple of oth­er faiths. There­fore, his read­ings and his ap­proach to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty was in­formed by his open­ness.

"Not on­ly the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion, but he was open and ap­pre­cia­tive of the re­al truth that lies at the heart of sev­er­al great re­li­gions in­clud­ing Hin­duism, Is­lam and Bud­dhism. He drew ex­ten­sive­ly from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions."

Mt St Bene­dict open to all

Pereira point­ed out one of out­stand­ing lega­cies of his tenure as ab­bot was en­hanc­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of the monastery as a place that was ac­ces­si­ble to peo­ple of all faiths. He said, "Mt St Bene­dict was seen as a sanc­tu­ary where peo­ple came to seek God. Al­though it is a Catholic Bene­dic­tine monastery, it had the unique qual­i­ty that peo­ple from all faiths have found a sense of God there.

That prac­tice has been with us from day one. We have East In­di­ans com­ing up here on pil­grim­age and a long tra­di­tion of Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists. He was close to mem­bers of the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Church. It is a place where peo­ple from all dif­fer­ent faiths can find peace with God amid their joys and sor­rows."

Com­pas­sion­ate heart

Pereira laud­ed Greene for hav­ing a "com­pas­sion­ate heart." For sev­er­al years, Greene served un­of­fi­cial­ly as a chap­lain to Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca. "Every Sun­day af­ter Greene had cel­e­brat­ed the Eu­charist, he would leave the monastery and spend time with pris­on­ers at Gold­en Grove. Many of them ap­pre­ci­at­ed his ap­proach to them. They found they could re­late to him at a dif­fer­ent lev­el than a pris­ons of­fi­cer."

At home, he worked close­ly with the of­fi­cials and in­mates at New Life Min­istries Drug Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre. Pereira added, "There he ex­er­cised com­pas­sion. Even with his monks, he showed a com­pas­sion­ate heart. I think it was one of the hall­marks of his life." Al­though they have not de­cid­ed on a tan­gi­ble man­ner to ho­n­our his lega­cy, Greene's name would be etched on a plaque and hung with­in the monastery. "We would place it where the monks pray. We want to re­mem­ber the names of the de­ceased monks."

Thanks to Mt Hope

Dur­ing the time he was bedrid­den and had de­gen­er­at­ed more from Parkin­sons' dis­ease, doc­tors from Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex took ex­cel­lent care of Greene. Pereira thanked them for their yeo­man ser­vice.While he thanked the en­tire med­ical team, he sin­gled out Dr Neil Pe­ters, Prof Hutchin­son and Dr Poon King at St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal for their as­sis­tance which was done "gratis."Pereira even thanked fel­low monks for their con­cern and care for Greene.

Greene's mile­stones

Born in 1938 in George­town, Guyana, Hilde­brand Greene was ed­u­cat­ed at the Ur­su­line Con­vent School and St Stanis­laus Col­lege be­fore join­ing the Abbey in Trinidad and To­ba­go at 18.As a young monk, Greene was sent to Rome to study sa­cred litur­gy at the Bene­dic­tine In­sti­tute of San Ansel­mo.Hilde­brand al­so ob­tained an arts de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

It was as chap­lain of the uni­ver­si­ty that he made a no­table im­pres­sion on many of the stu­dents, in­clud­ing Bish­op Fran­cis Al­leyne, OSB, who at the time was pur­su­ing a de­gree in En­gi­neer­ing.Par­tial­ly un­der the in­flu­ence of Greene, Fran­cis left the Uni­ver­si­ty and be­came a monk of the Abbey at Mount St Bene­dict.On Jan­u­ary 15, 2008, Greene re­newed his monas­tic pro­fes­sion dur­ing a no­ble cel­e­bra­tion of the Eu­charist in the re­mote­ness of the Guyanese In­te­ri­or at the Bene­dic­tine Monastery in Bar­ti­ca.

Greene has taught cours­es in Litur­gy and Com­par­a­tive Re­li­gion for sev­er­al years at the Re­gion­al Sem­i­nary.He is well known for his work among pris­on­ers in Bar­ti­ca at the Mazaruni Prison across the riv­er from the Monastery.