Brother Gregory Escardo, OCSO, entered monastic life in 2007 and leads the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani at the request of Abbot Elias. An Infirmarian for nearly a decade, he is interpreter for the Strict Observance Cistercians since 2016, abbey chocolatier and librarian, and has been asked to help the Trappist community of Tre Fontane in Rome. Brother Gregory has a Master’s degree from Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, MN and a BS from Columbia; and did Architecture studies at Yale. A special interest in interfaith dialogue began with the Conference of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in New York, and continued at the community of Lavra Netofa in Galilee, a bridge between Christian Palestinians and Jewish Israelis.

Scott W. Hodgman lives in Roswell, Georgia, an active member of the Lay Cistercian community at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit, where his connection with the monks reaches back to 2003. After a career in engineering, he earned his MA in Religious Studies from Georgia State University and studied Systematic Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He has led retreats on contemplation and interreligious dialogue and has delivered papers at the Pappas Patristic Institute and the annual conference of the Mythopoeic Society, particularly on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Pat Klus has been a Lay Cistercian in the Cincinnati community since 2017. He has been married to his wife, Katie, for twenty-six years; they have four children. He teaches religion to freshmen and sophomores at St. Xavier Jesuit High School and serves as chaplain to the wrestling team.

Christopher Evan Longhurst, KSO, is a New Zealand-based lay theologian and educator whose work explores aesthetics, abuse, safeguarding, and institutional accountability within religious contexts. A Companion of the King’s Service Order and survivor advocate, he contributes to academic and public conversations through interdisciplinary research, publishing, lecturing, and commentary. He is a Fellow of KAICIID and a member of the Cistercian Associates of Kopua in Aotearoa New Zealand, where his scholarship is shaped by contemplative spirituality and monastic tradition. Further information is available at celonghurst.com.

Puri Mercedes Garrido Pastor, M.A., is a member of the Lay Cistercians of Sobrado (Galicia, Spain). Born in Palencia to a family of RENFE railway workers who emigrated to Argentina in 1962, she trained as an architect at UBA (1974) and soon after co-founded the contemplative Marian lay movement Marian Solitude with Dom Bernardo Olivera, OCSO. An EU-certified eco-architect, she has worked across Europe, China, Latin America, and Canada, placing her profession at the service of indigenous and marginalized communities while facing political persecution and the gender discrimination common to professional women of the 1970s. Celibate and without religious vows, she lives “in Mary of Saint Joseph.” Now retired (College of Architects of Asturias), she volunteers with the Spanish Red Cross, CEAR, and the Trappist Monastery of Santa María de Sobrado.

John Pestian, PhD, is a member of the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani, Cincinnati, OH. He is married and he has three adult children. His love of the Cistercian charism stretches back over fifty years, to when his parents first brought him to the None hour at the Abbey of Gethsemani. He is an endowed professor of pediatrics, psychiatry, and biomedical informatics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, where his research focuses on pediatric mental health.