Welsh Journals

will be a rarity. He speaks, for instance, of English parishes being given the green light after Vatican II, "but we were stuck on amber." As an interested observer, his comments on Anglican perceptions of the Welsh Covenant are as revealing. I would, however, have liked him to develop his argument that, unlike England where "it was always said that the Anglican Church was the bridge between the Catholic Church and the Free Churches", in Wales "the Catholic Church might well be the bridge between the Church in Wales and the Free Churches." Ron Howells writes well, holding the reader's attention with homely asides, and human interest descriptions. There are a few typographical slips, and the spelling of some names needs to be checked in any subsequent reprint. This is, however, an important contribution to the story of Welsh Catholicism and ecumenism from someone who was close to, and involved in, the movement at a significant period in its history. It deserves to be widely read. Gethin Abraham-Williams Church in Wales Board of Mission Roscoe Howells, Total Community. The Monks of Caldey Island. Llandysul, Dyfed, Gomer Press, 3rd ed. rev., 1994. xxiii + 176pp, illus. £ 6.75p pbk. ISBN 1-85902-106-9. From the earliest days of monasticism to the present, monks have recognised the importance of physical separation from the concerns and temptations of secular society. Throughout history, they sought out caves, deserts, and other inaccessible places for solitude. This abandonment of mundane concerns most certainly involved a rejection of earthly attractions as possible barriers to salvation and personal holiness, but monks also believed that detachment might also bring them into closer union with the divine. Monasticism enjoyed a long and venerable history throughout the British Isles, and islands became places where the monk might geographically distance himself from the concerns of human society. Lindisfarne, Iona, and Caldey proudly share in this monastic heritage. Roscoe Howells's fascinating and scholarly work tells the story of Caldey Island and the Cistercian monks who moved there in 1929 and who still carry on the monastic tradition.