In the year 2000, the new Archbishop of Barcelona was a layman working in a newspaper archive in Tarragona, a port city in Spain’s Catalonia region.
Octavi Vilà Mayo, who was then in his late thirties, became involved that year in the Germandat de Poblet, a lay association connected with Poblet monastery, a Cistercian community at the foot of the Prades Mountains, a roughly 40-minute drive from Tarragona.
The association organized retreats during Lent and Advent, as well as groups dedicated to Lectio Divina, the meditative reading of Scripture. Vilà was increasingly drawn to monastic life. He also felt that if he remained on a secular career path he would receive weighty new responsibilities.
In a 2016 interview, he said: “I felt like a cog in the system, sometimes playing a role that involved putting pressure on people. This was one of the things that made me question what we really want to be in life and what we are being called to.”
“The particular circumstances surrounding a promotion that was about to come my way prompted me to set an expiry date for myself, so that I would not accept it.”
In 2005, at the age of 43, he entered the monastery, embarking on a five-year formation process that ended with his solemn profession. Vilà was ordained to the priesthood in 2015, when he was 53. To put this in perspective, the new Archbishop of Barcelona did not become a priest until two years after Pope Francis was elected.