Kline is now the abbot of Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist-Cistercian monastery outside Charleston founded in 1949, and director of the Office of Prayer and Worship for the Catholic diocese of Charleston. He played his first organ recital in Philadelphia at age 15. He went on to study at the Curtis Institute before entering The Juilliard School as a student of Vernon de Tar. In 1972, he entered a Trappist monastery and was ordained a priest in 1986.
As a young monk, Kline received the permission of his superiors to take up music again and integrate it into his monastic life. Since then, he has performed a limited number of recitals. Most recently, he played "The Stations of the Cross" in a special concert for the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Organ Recital Series in Charleston, S.C. He has also performed all-Bach recitals at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul.
Kline is the author of several articles on the theology of St. Bernard, the pre-eminent Cistercian writer. His new book, Lovers of the Place: Mona
