A holy man tipped to lead the nation’s Catholics

Mary Wakefield meets Dom Hugh Gilbert, the Benedictine Abbot of Pluscarden — said to be the Pope’s ‘dark horse’ candidate to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

What is holiness? How do you spot it? I’ve come to Worth Abbey in Sussex to meet a monk often described as ‘holy’ — Dom Hugh Gilbert, OSB, Abbot of Pluscarden in Scotland — and I wonder as I wander around in search of him, what form his sanctity will take.

What is a holy man, and where is this holy man? Worth seems deserted. Puddles lie low in sleeves of ice; clouds hang motionless over what looks like a spaceship but must be the church. The air is full of a curious, attentive silence.

On further investigation, the spaceship, too, is empty. There’s a vast cross suspended over an altar, and in a hallway, a little unmanned bookshop containing Pope Benedict XVI’s collected works and — phew! — a note addressed to me: ‘Dear Mary, Apologies for being late, Fr Hugh.’