Our main ministry is to people who want some days of freedom from the world,” says 81-year-old Father Robert, pictured here during lunch in July 2018. He first came to New Camaldoli Hermitage in 1959 before going to study elsewhere. “Everyone needs support and we provide a place where people can come and be healed and encouraged.”
On the property, the monks gather for meals, movies and daily prayer and chanting. There is a vegetable garden and chicken coop that produces fresh eggs. Most days they are above the fog line and the view is nothing but blue skies over the hillside and a two-mile meandering paved road that leads up from Highway 1 below to their solitary world.