Father Joel Rippinger, OSB, is a monk of Marmion Abbey. With graduate degrees in history from the University of Notre Dame and in monastic studies from the Pontifical University of Sant'Anselmo in Rome, he has written extensively on Benedictine history and spirituality for the past forty years. He is the author of The Benedictine Order in the United States: An Interpretive History (Liturgical Press, 1990). He is a long-term member of the editorial board of the American Benedictine Review and a member and past president of the American Benedictine Academy. He continues to serve as formation director and director of oblates at Marmion Abbey and as instructor and faculty/staff chaplain at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Illinois.