Trappist Father Casimir Bernas dies

IC Photo/Linda Petersen

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From left, Father Showri Kalva, Deacon Greg Werking, Father John Evans, Abbot Dom Elias Dietz, OCSO and Father David Altman, OCSO (seated) are shown at the funeral Mass for Father Casimir Bernas, OCSO.

SALT LAKE CITY — Father Casimir Bernas, OCSO passed away on Aug. 9. Father John Evans, vicar general, presided at his funeral Mass which was held on Aug. 13 at St. Joseph’s Villa chapel. The Mass was concelebrated by Abbot Dom Elias Dietz from Gethsemani Monastery, Ky., and several priests of the diocese.

Fr. Casimir was born Jan. 19, 1930 in Chicago, Ill. He entered the Abbey of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville in 1949 and took his final vows in 1955. He was ordained a priest in 1958.

Fr. Casimir served as abbot of the Huntsville monastery from 2001 to 2008. In 2017, when the monastery closed, he moved with six fellow monks to St. Joseph’s Villa in Salt Lake City.

During his homily at the funeral Mass, Abbot Dietz described Fr. Casimir as “an independent-minded man in an independent-minded community in the independent-minded state of Utah, in the independent-minded country of the United States of America.”

“Fr. Casimir certainly worked with what the Lord gave him,” Abbot Dietz said. “His vocation was clear to him, as can be seen in his 72 years as a monk and 66 years as a priest. With the support of his community, he became a good linguist and an accomplished biblical scholar.”

Fr. Casimir wrote hundreds of reviews of biblical studies and was much sought after in that area, Abbot Dietz said.

“Most of his life, though, was spent following the daily routine in the Huntsville monastery there. As is the case with all monks, he fulfilled a wide variety of roles and even served one term as abbot, but his community life was quite full, to be sure,” he said.

‘But activities and projects and initiatives all come to an end,” he said. “The limitations of age make themselves felt. Even the monastery Fr. Casimir joined in its early years completed its journey within his lifetime.”

“Jesus’s words touch us most when we are borne down and begin to experience our limitations: ‘Come to me all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest,’” he said. “It can be difficult letting go; it certainly was for Fr. Casimir, but this is also a time of grace.”

Abbot Dietz expressed appreciation for the support Fr. Casimir and other members of the monastery received from the Utah community, especially in their later years.

“I am personally grateful to so many of the staff here at the villa, the chaplaincy, the wider Catholic community and the many friends who have been so welcoming and charitable to the brothers of Huntsville in their final years,” he said.

At the conclusion of the funeral Fr. Evans shared fond memories he had of the monks and the monastery.

”My parents and countless families all over Utah would often make a little pilgrimage up there, maybe come to get spiritual advice from the monks, to come and pray, maybe step away from life a little bit, and we can be so thankful for the gift that they were to us and knowing how much they prayed for us and for our spiritual good all through the decades,” he said.

Fr. Casimir was buried in the Holy Trinity cemetery on the property of the former monastery in Huntsville, “that he might be buried among his brothers,” Fr. Evans said. “I can only think of all the years that they would watch the sun rise over the mountains and set once again, in the West, the beautiful property and land, but more so, the beauty of their just being there, being holy, being who God made them to be. So let us take his body to that final place of rest.”