The Caldey Monks and the Catholic Press, 1905–1913

Abstract

Aelred Calyle (1874–1955) devoted his entire life as an Anglican to the establishment of Benedictine monasticism in the Church of England. Monastic life had attracted him early: as a medical student in London he joined a brotherhood in 1893; he often visited Buckfast Abbey, where he almost converted to Roman Catholicism; and in 1898 he took private vows of poverty, chastity and obedience according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. In the same year, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, sanctioned his solemn profession as an Anglican Benedictine monk. Four years later, Temple also signed a charter which commissioned Carlyle to found an Anglican monastery and appointed him as its abbot. With the approbation of William Maclagan, the Archbishop of York, Bishop Charles Grafton ordained him a priest on 15 November 1904, in his American diocese of Fond- du-Lac. Along with archiepiscopal sanction and orders, Carlyle also enjoyed the patronage of Lord Halifax, the prominent Anglo-Catholic. In 1902, Carlyle accepted Halifax’s invitation to settle at his estate at Painsthorpe in Yorkshire.