By Patrick Jamieson, Victoria (with Bruce Witzel, Port Alice)

Comox B.C. — Rev. Charles Brandt, noted environmentalist, hermit monk, spiritual guide and inspiration to many beyond the Catholic Church and priest of the , Diocese of Victoria, died here at St. Joseph s hospital October 24th of ’ respiratory failure. He was in his 98th year.

Father Brandt lived for nearly five decades in his hermitage, initially as a member of a unique hermit community on Vancouver Island, Hermitage of Saint John Baptist, established in 1964; more recently as its sole surviving member on the Tsolum River at Black Creek, between Comox Valley and Campbell River.

His hermitage property has been bequested to a permanent land conservancy based on environmental principles.

HISTORIC

In 1965 Bishop Remi De Roo ordained Brandt as the first hermitpriest in years for The Roman 300 Catholic Church. The western eremetical tradition had fallen into disuse after the Protestant Reformation and was only reconstituted at the Second Vatican Council 1962-65, which De Roo attended as a young bishop.

Brandt in and De Roo were communication with world famous author Trappist hermit monk and Thomas Merton about joining the community on Vancouver Island in 1968 at the time of Merton s death. ’ Brandt had entered monastic life as a Trappist at New Melleray, Iowa.

Brandt earned his keep as a paper conservationist with a special lab at his hermitage. He taught Christian meditation practice there as well, teaching many over the decades. He occasionally helped out as a celebrating priest in The Comox Valley and Campbell River Catholic parishes.

The priest was much celebrated in later years which included media profiles and reports on his pioneer environmental work including the CBC and the Vancouver Sun credited with heading up the effort to save the Tsolum River Oyster and s from industrial degradation. His reputation as a spiritual teacher as well as his whole legendary reputation as someone who integrated spirituality with ecology, (in line with the current pope Francis and the Saint he chose for his name St. Francis of Assisi), will live on after him in the lives and efforts of the many he directly inspired.

INTRODUCTION

My first experience of Father Charles was at Muenster, SK when he came quietly knocking on the door of the in my first Prairie Messenger summer as editor in 1981. A mail strike was on, so I had plenty of time to show him around and chat. He was studying paper conservancy technique in Winnipeg and taken time to visit St. Peter s Benedictine Monas- ’ tery who owned the PM.

SOFT SPOKEN & CHARISMATIC

He seemed almost familiar as a type even then. Perhaps he mentioned Vancouver Island but I got to know him much better after 1986, visiting his hermitage a number of times as a church journalist.

He was always conversant on the current issues of the church, his comments were transparent and well thought through.

He did the binding of back issues of ICN every couple of years during its first decades. While well known for his environmental spirituality and activism, I wrote more about his unique and prophetic ministry as a hermit monk in the western church. In my 2002 biography of Bishop De Roo, I had this to say… “

At the time of his sudden and rather mysterious death while on a trip to Asia in 1968, Merton was Thomas considering moving to Vancouver Island to be part of a new hermit community which De Roo had encouraged to set up foundation in his diocese.

“A number of monks had left their Trappist and Benedictine monastic communities around the world to converge at the old town of Headquarters on the Tsolum River, near Courtenay, four hours north of Victoria. The movement, fed by the fervour of Vatican II, was under the leadership of Belgian Jacques Winandy who first arrived with one other monk July 16, 1964.

“Members of this community included Bernard de Aguiar, a Brazilian who had served with Merton in Kentucky, and Charles Brandt, an American from Missouri, who had been a Trappist at New Melleray, Iowa. They were the most persistent two of an original eight hermits who formed part of a hermit community which “quickly grew to a maximum number of thirteen.”

“In his 1969 memorandum of history of the founding of the community, Winandy stated: Besides those ‘ mentioned, some twenty candidates presented themselves during a period of five years… without mentioning those who just came to see and the ‘ ’ many, more numerous, who wrote for information and were either refused for diverse reasons or who never followed up…’

“The ones who did stay included Americans, a Québecer, an Irish from Australia, a native of Martinique and the Brazilian, de Aguiar. In the first five years of their presence on the Island, the twelve thousand dollar property they bought tripled in value and they anticipated establishing a colony of women hermits in the next three to five years. But before this could occur it started to dwindle.

“In the early 1960s, Brandt was in correspondence with Thomas Merton who candidly stated his own discontent at Gethsemani. Merton felt that an American corporate model had taken over monasticism there and he wanted to be part of a reform back to basics à la Vatican II. He wrote to Brandt:

“It has to be admitted that the monastic life as we have it in the houses of our Order now leaves much to be desired… The consequence is that problems arise… Superiors have tended to regard all such desires with suspicion, on the bases that there have been so many eccentrics and neurotics.

“At the same time even a genuine vocation to a more contemplative life can be made to appear and to act neurotic by a certain type of frustration of his legitimate needs.

“The idea of a community of hermits seems somewhat paradoxical but as Merton wrote in the same letter: “The thing we have to remember is that the desire for authentic monastic solitude comes from God and not from man, and that God is working to bring about the realization of conditions in which His will can be fulfilled.

“We all have to co-operate with Him in whatever way we can, and the ways offered may for some reason seem paradoxical. The ability to accept paradoxical and untidy solutions has a great deal to do with the solitary life which is necessarily unpatterned and existential. But if you do come to live as a hermit somewhere, be ready for a grim time and don t expect some of the consola- ’ tions you are leaving behind.”

“Merton never did join. He missed a connection with De Roo and Winandy at the Vancouver airport in the fall of 1968 on his last trip. Brandt said Merton was well known for getting flight times confused, so they never did connect.

“Ironically, given his radical pacifism, Merton only returned from Asia in a coffin in the belly of an American Air force bomber, a paradox itself which fuelled speculation about the cause of his death. (see many past issues of ICN)

“The residual paradoxical tensions Merton alluded to may have resulted in this experiment lasting only a decade in its uniqueness following the Vatican Council. By 2000, only one hermit persists, Charles Brandt, although de Aguiar continued to dwell nearby as a laicized priest. De Aguiar lived a hermetic existence on Hornby Island, as a scholar, artist and pastoral counsellor until nearly the time of his death in November, 1998.

“If Merton had decided to join the group, with his dynamic charism, one can only conjecture how something special could have developed from the leadership styles of the avant garde bishop and the world famous writer hermit, perhaps something permanent.

THE CONTEMPLATIVE DIMENSION

“It was the work of Bishop De Roo at Vatican II which enabled this worldwide development of western hermit life to begin on Vancouver Island. De Roo made a key intervention in 1965. According to Charles Brandt, it helped re-established the tradition in the Catholic Church after the lengthy hiatus.

In his successful intervention at the Council De Roo stated the Latin ‘ Church is experiencing an ever growing renewal of the life of hermits. It is urgent therefore that the western Church officially recognize the life of hermits as a state of perfection. And Vatican II should make a point of this.’

“De Roo was quoted saying the hermit fills a prophetic role in the church “reminding us that the building of an earthly city is not the final end of all things. Fleeing the noisy whirlwind of worldly activities, he opens his heart to the Holy Spirit in an atmosphere of calm and interior reflection. Thus he pursues an essential calling of the church, the direct contemplation of God.”

’AVANT GARDE’

“When De Roo ordained Charles Brandt in November, 1966 the Victoria Daily Colonist headline exclaimed: Hermit-Monks Ordina- ‘ tion First in Two Centuries” and called the hermit colony “the only one in North America.’

“Bishop De Roo, who has encour- ‘ aged and supported the unique 20th Century hermitage since its founding in September, 1964, said the ordination would emphasize a facet of religious life neglected by the western church for years and would restore a balance such as is still maintained by eastern and Oriental branches.’

“He said Father Brandt and the ‘ other solitary hermits of the Hermitage of St. John the Baptist, each of whom lives alone and apart from his fellows on the primitive hermitage acreage… There is little regimentation, for the hermits feel, in the words of Father Winandy that they must guard against the strong tendency of westerners to organize, standardize, centralize and legislate every detail of life.’

“Thirty-two years later in November of 1998 De Roo accepted the renewal of vows by Charles Brandt at Saint Andrew s Cathedral under a ’ section of the new Code of Canon Law which gives legal status to the hermit state in the Catholic Church. Throughout his career De Roo was consistently seen as counter-cultural, and the contemplative dimension was the root of it. This experiment expressed the ultimate alternative experience of being counter-cultural. “

‘Before Vatican II there was really no possibility of living the hermit life with the church s blessings, said ’ ’ Brandt who by this time was being celebrated nationally as a modern ‘ Saint Francis winning awards for environmental care.’

“‘Asked how he was able to integrate his lifestyle, Brandt said he was inspired by Saint Francis… You just put one foot in front of the other, with no destination in mind.’

“Vancouver Sun religion writer Douglas Todd goes on to say: Brandt ‘ is a follower and friend of the renowned Catholic monk Thomas Merton, who developed a form of Christian-Buddhist contemplation and encouraged him to become a hermit. Brandt also bases his life s’ work on Thomas Berry, a noted Catholic eco-theologian.’

“‘With the full support of Vancouver Island bishop Remi De Roo, whom Brandt considers avant garde … It is ‘ ’ not an easy thing to do—to discover, as he says in his slow, almost whispery voice, the deeper inner self—to realize that the human soul and the earth and the Spirit of God are all interconnected, all one.

“‘Like the monks of the 12th Century, Brandt believes his life of prayer and contemplation is far from irrelevant to the world. It s abso- ‘ ’ lutely essential. ”’ “

’In his sermon at Charles Brandt s ordination on November 21, 1966 at Courtenay, De Roo gave this summary to the proposition: The hermetical ‘ life is a unique, a select, a relatively rare vocation. Hermits make their lives into an oasis of concentrated prayer and contemplation to fortify the entire Church, the communion of saints. Theirs is a silent witness, a witness of example, of conduct, of action more than of words.

“The witness of those who testify that God alone is the centre of the universe and of all religious aspirations. Hermits remind us, by their lives, of the ultimate meaning of human existence.

“We are not to establish a paradise here below. We are called to a higher destiny in the kingdom of God. This destiny the Hermit proclaims, reminding us by their detachment from all things of the necessary eschatological tension of the Church.”

Charles Brandt was extraordinary in my experience as someone with his feet well rooted in the deepest monastic tradition of the Catholic Church and his head searching the stars for inspired signs and guidance as to the well being and future of the planet Earth.