PORTLAND – The signal came from the Vatican in 1986. Church officials wanted the Rev. Joseph Gerry, a longtime monk, teacher and college administrator, to leave his monastery for a high-level diocesan post.

Gerry agonized over the offer. He was concerned about church politics, and later compared leaving St. Anselm, the Manchester, N.H., college and monastery where he had lived for most of his adult life, to the death of a loved one.

Yet in the end he took the job out of obedience.

Gerry has now spent 13 years as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which covers all of Maine, but the teachings of St. Benedict still appear to guide him. Though friends say the bishop can be animated and funny, his responses to the priest sexual abuse scandal have been marked by the monastic values of obedience and silence.

On Thursday, the leader of Maine’s Roman Catholics will meet for the first time with a group of abuse victims. At Gerry’s insistence, the listening session will be held behind closed doors.

The bishop broke a long silence with reporters Tuesday when he read a statement about the new national policy on sexual abuse, then answered four questions.

Through a spokeswoman, the bishop declined to comment for this story.

Thirteen years ago, Gerry was praised for his appreciation of silence and discretion in the introduction to his book, “Ever Present Lord.”

“This collection,” the introduction reads, “… is the work of a monk, an abbot, a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, who understands the value of silence and the calmness of spirit which fewness of words tends to produce.”

“The central message of his work can be found in the time-honored monastic expression, ‘discretion’ …”

Those words were written by Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, the man who helped persuade Gerry to become New Hampshire’s auxiliary bishop 16 years ago.

Gerry was born in 1928, the seventh of eight children to Blanche and Bernard Gerry, a Millinocket millworker. His parents gave him the name John but he later took the religious name Joseph.

He was just 16 when he enrolled at St. Anselm College. Though he considered becoming a doctor or teacher, he took his first vows while still an undergraduate. Then, after earning his bachelor’s degree, he enrolled in the seminary at St. Anselm.

In a 1989 interview, Gerry said that he was drawn to the Benedictine order by his interactions as a college student with St. Anselm’s monks.

“We used to play ball together on Saturdays,” he said. “I sensed something very wholesome about them and their outlook on life and the whole notion of community life.”

After his ordination in 1954, Gerry left St. Anselm to complete two graduate degrees in philosophy, but he returned to the abbey four years later. Eventually he took leadership roles, rising to abbot of the monastery and chancellor of the college.

The Benedictines at St. Anselm live, eat and pray together, and consequently form close, almost familial bonds, said the Rev. Jonathan DeFelice, Gerry’s longtime friend who is now president of the college.

The monks also take a vow of stability, a promise to remain in the monastery for their entire lives, which distinguishes them from other Catholic orders.

So when church officials offered Gerry the job of auxiliary bishop of Manchester in 1986, his decision was torturous.

“I had a hard time saying yes,” he said in an interview three years later. “When it dawns on you that the whole rhythm of your life is going to be taken from you, it’s like the death of someone dear to you. I remember the struggle I went through in my mind, asking myself, ‘What’s the politics of this?’ and ‘How did I get involved?”‘

After much prayer and discussion with Cardinal Law, Gerry agreed to leave St. Anselm out of obedience to the church, he later said.

“His reluctance was not serving the church, his reluctance was about leaving the Benedictine life,” DeFelice said. “If you’re called to serve, you’ve got to answer that call.”

Deference to one’s superiors is a central value throughout the Roman Catholic clergy, but for the Benedictines obedience to the abbot is an everyday routine.

It is also codified in the Rule of St. Benedict, which dates to A.D. 530 and teaches that “the obedience which is rendered to superiors is rendered to God.”

Likewise, silence is an ingrained part of Benedictine life; monks do not speak from evening prayers until after breakfast, about 12 hours a day.

Just two years after Gerry agreed to leave the monastery at St. Anselm, he was elevated to run the Portland Diocese. His 13-year tenure in Maine has included efforts to increase interfaith dialogue and to expand the church’s role in state politics.

Gerry has clearly been engaged in the diocese’s response to the abuse scandal. In March he promised to remove any priest facing a credible abuse allegation, and two months later he gave prosecutors files on 33 inactive priests accused of abusing minors. He has also met with groups of concerned parishioners.

But the bishop has been discreet publicly in the face of intense criticism for reassigning abusive priests to new parishes.

His zero tolerance policy was read to parishioners by an assistant, and unlike some bishops, he has refused to make public the names of inactive priests accused of abuse.

The private Gerry is intelligent, animated, decisive, self-effacing and deeply human, his friends say.

“[He] is able to tell a funny story, crack a joke, make a serious point and learn something all at once,” said Denise Askin, a longtime friend and professor at St. Anselm.

But the public Gerry remains guarded. The bishop may be media-shy, but he also appears to be following the monastic code.

As the Rule of St. Benedict teaches, “For it belongeth to the master to speak and to teach; it becometh the disciple to be silent and to listen.”