Calvet, 80, mourned in France

Catholic prelates and traditionalists from around the world are gathering at St. Madeleine du Barroux monastery in France today for the funeral of Dom Gerard Calvet, the founder of the post-Vatican II traditional Benedictine movement.

Father Calvet, whose influence in contemporary Catholic traditionalism trailed only that of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, died Thursday at age 80. His health had been in sharp decline since he suffered a stroke in the late 1990s.

He was born in Bordeaux, France, on Nov. 18, 1927; took his first vows as a Benedictine monk on Feb. 4, 1951; and was ordained a priest on May 13, 1956.

Father Calvet rose to prominence shortly after the Second Vatican Council, when he and a few traditionally minded monks set out to restore the defunct St. Madeleine du Barroux monastery in Provence, France. In the next two decades, Father Calvet would ally himself with Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X in celebrating the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, which led to the monastery’s functioning outside church recognition.

In this time, he helped found the Chartres Pilgrimage, an annual three-day pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres that draws thousands of traditional Catholics. In 1986, Father Calvet published “Tomorrow Christendom,” a biting indictment of what he saw as Europe’s cultural and spiritual suicide, coupled with a plea to return to France’s Christian patrimony.

Relations between the monastery and the Holy See thawed in 1988, when Father Calvet objected to Archbishop Lefebvre’s schismatic consecration of bishops.

“I initially supported the consecrations,” Father Calvet said in a 2000 interview, “but had a change of heart after talking to a bishop who had been persecuted by the Chinese government.”

“He had suffered physical torture rather than renounce his communion with Rome,” Father Calvet said. “How could I abandon my communion after what this bishop had suffered for his?”

He would lead his monastery, as well as many Catholic traditionalists who shared his concerns over the consecrations, back to full communion with Rome. On July 2, 1989, the church raised the monastery to the status of abbey and named Father Calvet its first abbot — a position he held until his health forced him to resign in 2003.