| Mélanie Calvat | |
| Birth Date: | 7 November 1831 |
| Birth Place: | Corps en Isère, France |
| Death Date: | 15 December 1904 (aged 73) |
| Death Place: | Altamura, Italy |
| Resting Place: | Istituto Figlie del Divino Zelo via Annibale M. di Francia, 25 – Altamura, Italy |
| Resting Place Coordinates: | 40.8231°N 16.5567°W |
| Other Names: | Sister Mary of the Cross |
| Known For: | Visionary of Our Lady of La Salette |
| Occupation: | religious sister |
| Nationality: | French |
Françoise Mélanie Calvat (in French fʁɑ̃swaz melani kalva/, 7 November 183114 December 1904), religious name Mary of the Cross, was a French religious sister in the Roman Catholic church. She and Maximin Giraud were the two seers of Our Lady of La Salette.
Calvat was born on 7 November 1831 in Corps en Isère, France. She was the fourth of ten children to Pierre Calvat, a stonemason and "pitsawyer by trade" who did not hesitate to take whatever job he could find in order to support his family, and Julie Barnaud, his wife. The family was so poor "that the young were sometimes dispatched to beg on the street".[1]
At a very young age, Calvat was hired out to tend the neighbors' cows, where she met Maximin Giraud on the eve of their apparition. From the spring to the fall of 1846 she worked for Jean-Baptiste Pra at Les Ablandins, one of the hamlets of the village of La Salette. She spoke only the regional Occitan[2] dialect and fragmented French. She had neither schooling nor religious instruction, thus she could neither read or write.
On 19 September 1846, it is related that Calvat and Maximin Giraud, who were only teenagers, saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the mountains of La Salette, who gave them both public and private messages.[3]
The bishop of Grenoble, Philibert de Bruillard, named several commissions to examine the facts. In December 1846, the first commissions were established. One was formed of professors from the major seminary of Grenoble and the other from titulary canons. The latter commission concluded that a more extensive examination was necessary before formulating a judgment. A new inquiry was held from July to September 1847, by two members of the commission, Canon Orcel, the superior of the major seminary, and Canon Rousselot.[4]
A conference on the matter at the bishop's residence took place in November–December 1847. Sixteen members – the vicars general of the diocese, the parish priests of Grenoble and the titulary canons – assembled in the presence of the bishop. The majority concluded to the authenticity of the apparition, after the examination of the report from Rousselot and Urcel. Moreover, the Bishop of Sens had examined very carefully three cures attributed to Our Lady of La Salette that had occurred in the city of Avallon. The local bishop, Mgr. Mellon Jolly, recognized on 4 May 1849, one of the three cures, which had occurred on 21 November 1847, as miraculous.
Mgr. de Bruillard was convinced of the reality of the apparition and authorized the publication of the Rousselot report, which affirmed the reality of the apparition. In his letter of approbation, added as a preface, the bishop of Grenoble declared that he shared the opinion of the majority of the commission which adopted the conclusions of the report.
However, Louis Jacques Maurice de Bonald, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, on whom Grenoble depended, suspected a subterfuge. The Cardinal demanded that the children tell him their secret, saying that he had a mandate from the Pope. The children finally acceded to this demand. Calvat, however, insisted that her text be carried directly to the Pope. It was under those conditions that the Bishop of Grenoble sent two representatives to Rome. The text of the two private secrets were reportedly handed to Pope Pius IX on 18 July 1851 but was apparently lost.
The procedure was favourable, since the mandate of Mgr. de Bruillard, adjusted according to observations of Luigi Lambruschini, Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites at Rome, was signed on 18 September 1851, and was published the following 10 November 1851. In it, the bishop of Grenoble promulgated this judgement: "We judge that the apparition of the Holy Virgin to the two shepherds, 19 September 1846 ... in the parish of La Salette ... carries within it all the characteristics of truth, and that the faithful have reason to believe it indubitable and certain."[5]
The motives of the decision, which rested on the work of Rousselot and that of the commission of 1847, were the impossibility of explaining the events, the miracles and the cures in a human manner, as well as the spiritual fruits of the apparition, notably conversions and finally the right expectations and desires of large crowds of priests and faithful.
Later, 16 November 1851, the Bishop of Grenoble published a statement that the mission of the shepherd children had ended and that the matter was now in the hands of the Church. The bishop made it clear that the approval of the Church was only for the original revelation of 1846, not for any subsequent claims.
La Salette immediately stirred up a great fervour in French society, it also provoked enormous discussions. The little visionaries were somewhat disturbed by the perpetual interrogations, the threats—sometimes violent—from political and ecclesiastical opponents, and also the assaults of fervour. Calvat especially was venerated in the manner of a saint, like what happened to Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who, without doubting, defended herself against that, which harmed the equilibrium of the two visionaries. Calvat had difficulty living a stable religious life. Maximin, who entered the seminary, also had difficulties living a normal life.
After the apparition in 1846, Calvat was placed as a boarder in the Sisters of Providence Convent in Corenc close to Grenoble. "As early as November 1847, her directress feared 'that the celebrity that had been thrust upon her might make her conceited'."[1] She entered religion at the age of twenty and in 1850 she became a postulant with this order and in October 1851 she took the veil. While at Corenc she was known to sit down surrounded by enthralled listeners, as she related stories of her childhood.
In May 1853, Bishop de Bruillard died. In early 1854, his replacement refused to grant permission for her to be professed, because he found that she was not spiritually mature enough.[6] Calvat claimed that the real reason for the refusal was that the bishop was aiming to gain the favour of the emperor Napoleon III of France.
Following the bishop's refusal to permit her to be professed, Calvat was officially allowed to move to a convent of the Sisters of Charity. The order was dedicated to hard practical work in helping the poor, and Calvat met brisk common sense, not flattery or adulation. Calvat continued to speak about the apparitions and a Masonic plot to destroy Catholic France. However, after three weeks, she was returned to Corps en Isère for further education.
Napoleon III was ruling republican France, but royalists were plotting to restore the king of the Catholic country. That political controversy dominated conversation throughout France, with the French Church trying to maintain neutrality. Calvat made this difficult for the hierarchy, by continuing to repeat the reputed words of the Virgin Mary and opposing freemasonry. The bishop, aware of Melanie's fervid and outspoken royalist sympathies, was worried that she would become involved and thereby implicate the following of Our Lady of La Salette in politics. In 1854, Bishop Ginoulhiac wrote that the predictions attributed to Melanie had no basis in fact and had no importance with regard to La Salette as they came after La Salette and had nothing to do with it.
Calvat agreed to the suggestion of an English visiting priest, and was allowed to move to the Carmel at Darlington in England, where she arrived in 1855. This removed her from the French political controversies, so the bishop was pleased to agree to this move. She took temporary vows there in 1856. In 1858, Calvat wrote again to the Pope to transmit that part of the secret she was authorized to reveal in that year. While at Darlington she spoke of a variety of strange events and miracles. The local bishop forbade her to speak publicly about these prophecies. In 1860, she was released from her vow of cloister at the Carmel by the Pope[7] and returned to mainland Europe.
She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Compassion in Marseille. A sister, Marie, was appointed as her companion. After a stay in their convent of Cephalonia, Greece where she and Sister Marie went to open an orphanage, and a short sojourn at the Carmelite convent of Marseille, she returned to the Sisters of Compassion for a brief period. In October 1864 she was admitted as a novice on condition she kept her identity secret. But she was recognized and her identity was no longer secret. In early 1867 she was officially released from the order and she and her companion then went, following a short stay at Corps and La Salette, to live at Castellamare[7] near Naples in Italy, where she was welcomed by the local bishop. She resided there seventeen years and wrote down her secret, including the rule for a future religious foundation.
In 1873, Calvat wrote her personal message down again, with the imprimatur of Sisto Riario Sforza, Cardinal Archbishop of Naples. Meanwhile, religious orders were being formed at La Salette, under the auspices of the local bishop, of Grenoble. These were to provide for the pilgrims and spread the message of the vision. Mélanie Calvat claimed she had been authorized by apparition to provide the names of these orders, their rules and their habits. The one for men was to be entitled Order of the Apostles of the Last Days, the one for the women the Order of the Mother of God. When the bishop refused her demands, she appealed to the Pope and was granted an interview. Mélanie Calvat was received by Pope Leo XIII in a private audience on 3 December 1878.
The message was officially published by Mélanie Calvat herself on 15 November 1879 and received the imprimatur of Mgr. Salvatore Luigi Zola, bishop of Lecce near Naples (who had protected and assisted Calvat in his diocese) under the title Apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette.[8] As a consequence of this publication, a historical dispute on the extent of the secret began, which lasts until today.
Calvat's anti-Masonic and apocalyptic pronouncements prompted a reaction. In 1880, the bishop of Troyes denounced the Lecce book to the Congregation of the Holy Office, and in turn Prospero Caterini, Cardinal Secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office, wrote back to him, in August 1880 saying that the Holy Office was displeased with the publication of this book, and wished copies withdrawn from circulation. The letter was passed on to the Bishop of Nîmes, and later that autumn portions of it were published. It is not clear whether Caterini's letter was personal correspondence or represented an official condemnation.[7] [9] The Vatican later put this book on the Index of Prohibited Books.
Mélanie Calvat moved to Cannes in the south of France, from where she travelled to Chalon-sur-Saône, seeking to found a community with the sponsorship of the Canon de Brandt of Amiens. Eventually she entered into litigation with Bishop Perraud, the ordinary of Autun over an inheritance given to support this foundation.
In 1892, Calvat returned to Lecce, Italy, and journeyed to Messina in Sicily at the invitation of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia. Following a few months in the Piedmont region, she was invited by the abbé Gilbert Combe, pastor of Diou, a priest much taken up with prophecies, to settle in the Allier region. She there finished her autobiography. In 1894 Combe published his version of Melanie's prohibited secret under the title The Great Coup and Its Probable Dates,[10] which was anti-Bonaparte and pro-Bourbon. It was reprinted at Lyon in 1904, a few months before Calvat's death. It too was put on the Index.[9]
Calvat visited the Sanctuary at La Salette for the last time on 18–19 September 1902. In the last months of her life she lived at Altamura, Italy, where she did not reveal her identity. For the locals, she was just an old French woman who used to go every day to the Altamura Cathedral for the Mass. Her identity was revealed only after her death.[11]
On 14 December 1904 Calvat was found dead in her home in Altamura.[1] She was interred in Altamura under a marble monument with a bas-relief depicting the Virgin Mary welcoming the shepherdess of La Salette into heaven.
Calvat was manipulated by different groups of prophecy enthusiasts, some with political agendas. In 1847, the self-proclaimed prophetess Therese Thiriet presented her message as "an addition to the prediction of the children of the district of Grenoble", largely against the Bishop of Nancy.[4] Melanie early began to blame the cabinet of Napoleon III for the evils she saw about to befall France, and viewed the Franco-Prussian War as a judgment from God.[7] Melanie's "prophetic meanderings" were later "orchestrated by ... Leon Bloy" and it became "a 'Melanist' movement allegedly stemming from La Salette, but lacking any foundation except the unverifiable pronouncements of Mélanie".[1] Inspired by both millennialist visionary and the reports of an apparition at La Salette, Bloy was convinced that the Virgin's message was that if people did not reform the endtime was imminent.[12] In 1912 Leon Bloy, an ardent millennialist, published a posthumous autobiography of Calvat, in which Melanie claimed to have had miraculous and prophetic experiences before the apparition of 1846.[13]
Jacques Maritain noted that "there was a small number of fanatics who made the Secret of La Salette a partisan affair, and whose aberrant interpretations, and their manner of using prophecies like a railway timetable, could only compromise the cause which they claimed to defend.[14]
Each apparition is particular to its own milieu and time. Kenneth L. Woodward observed that "seers acquire charismatic authority, which is routinely challenged by institutional authority in the figure of the local bishop ... The bishop is duty bound to take the part of the Devil's advocate, to simultaneously question the authenticity of the apparition and explore its possible meaning for the church."[15] Once again, during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XV, the Church was compelled to address the issue. Benedict XV issued an admonitum or formal papal warning recognizing the many different versions of the secret in all its diverse forms and forbidding the faithful or the clergy to investigate or discuss them without permission from their bishops. The admonitum further affirmed that the Church's prohibition issued under Pope Leo XIII remained binding. A decree in 1923 was prompted by the reprinting of the 1879 edition subsequently altered by an anti-clerical partisan of the secret.
Since the Second Vatican Council, the rules regarding the discussion of visions have been relaxed, and the Index has been abolished. Her book was republished, and discussion once again took place.
On reading an account of her life in 1910, Pope Pius X exclaimed to the Bishop of Altamura, in whose diocese she had died and was buried, "La nostra Santa!" He suggested to the Bishop that her cause for beatification be introduced immediately.[16] Despite this, Calvat is not currently beatified nor canonized by the Catholic Church.
Both Melanie Calvat's and Maximin Giraud's accounts of the message of the "beautiful lady" agree. According to the two children's account, the Virgin invited people to respect the repose of Sunday, and the name of God, and cautioned punishment, in particular a scarcity of potatoes, which would rot. She also encouraged them to pray. Their respective "secrets" appear to differ in both content and tone. Maximin's is somewhat more hopeful.
Mélanie composed various versions of her secret throughout her life. It was noted that the 1879 brochure appeared to be longer than the letter sent to the Pope in 1851. Bishop Zola explained that Melanie had not revealed the entire secret at that time.[9] A lively controversy followed as to whether the secret published in 1879 was identical with that communicated to Pius IX in 1851, or in its second form it was not merely a work of the imagination. The latter was the opinion of wise and prudent persons, who were persuaded that a distinction must be made between the two Mélanies, between the innocent and simple visionary of 1846 and the visionary of 1879, whose mind had been disturbed by reading apocalyptic books and the lives of illuminati.[3] According to Fr. J. Stern, these later divulgations have nothing to do with the apparition, and Melanie carried to her grave the secret she received that day.[4]
Combe incorporated Calvat's 1879 pamphlet into his own subsequent publication in support of his political views. It was placed on the Index. Again in 1906 another of Combe's publications titled The Secret of Melanie and the Current Crisis was again placed on the Index. These actions of the Church caused some confusion as to whether just Combe's book or the secret itself was placed on the Index. In October 1912, Albert Lepidi O.P., Master of the Sacred Palace, replying to a query by cardinal Louis Luçon, affirmed that the original message of 1846 remained approved. The latter messages, and particularly the 1872–1873 version, were not.[9]