Definition of "abbatial" []

• Of or having to do with an abbey, abbot, or abbess. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "What we should say, therefore, is simply that whatever the institutions are that seek the coherence and mutual intelligibility of the political communities of Europe, they should be marked by 'abbatial' virtues - by the way that authority itself reflects or embodies the careful listening that it itself demands; so that what is in view is always and only a corporate identity that can be owned and trusted by those for whom it acts."
• "On the middle cornice, again parallel to the altar of St. Benedict, St. Bernard receives the abbatial insignia from Our Lady."
• "That role was amicably filled by Abbot Joseph of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Redwood, California until his abbatial duties, understandably, simply didn't allow for it."