Br. Alain Delorme, deceased 7 August 2024

The Lord has welcomed Br Alain Delorme into the peace of his home. Br Alain died on 7 August 2024, aged 91, after 74 years of Religious Profession. His funeral was celebrated on Friday 9th in the Brothers’ chapel in Saint Genis-Laval, France.

Brother Alain was well known throughout the Institute. He held a number of leadership positions during his Marist life, from school headmaster to General Councillor (1995-1993). He led several formation centres and the Hermitage community. In addition to France and Italy, he also lived in Spain, Greece and Algeria, where he spent his childhood. He worked on the revision of the 1985 Constitutions and assisted in the cause of beatification of Br. Henri Vergès. He was also part of the team that carried out the renovation of the Institute’s mother house, the Hermitage. From 2013 onwards, he lived at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. He spent a great deal of time researching and publicising Marist history, writing many articles and books on our Marist historical and spiritual heritage. Some twenty articles written by him can be found in the Marist Notebooks. His two publications on the first brothers, Marvellous Companions of Marcellin Champagnat – Champagnat, (2009 and 2011), are well known.

__________________________

We have no shortage of material on Br. Alain Delorme, because in the course of his life, he covered almost the entire spectrum of responsibilities in the Institute: in particular, Director of large establishments (Aubenas, Marseille), Provincial, General Councillor, Superior of Notre-Dame de l’Hermitage, then of the retirement home at Varennes-sur-Allier. He wrote quite a remarkable autobiography that is also a chronicle of his times, of which we will only give a few details here.

He was born on 22 September 1932 in Saint Paulet-de-Caisson (Gard). His father was a senior miner, which is why Alain spent his childhood in Ouenza, Algeria, an iron ore mine. As he grew older, he joined his brothers at the Brothers’ boarding school in Aubenas in 1939. The premature death of his father in 1941 threw the family into difficulties, made even worse by the war. Nevertheless, Alain and his brothers continued their schooling in Aubenas amid the dangers of the end of the war. It was also thanks to the boarding school’s prayers to Father Champagnat that Alain escaped bronchial pneumonia.

It was a time when the Provinces of the Marist Brothers were trying to work together in their formation centres, and at the start of the new school year in 1945, Alain entered the juniorate at La Valla-en-Gier with two companions from the south. He accurately describes the atmosphere at this institution as both serious and homely. He did his novitiate at Notre-Dame de Lacabane (Corrèze) in 1948-50. During his postulancy, and just before taking the habit on 15 August 1949, he passed the first part of his A levels. At the end of his novitiate, he joined some sixty confreres in the scholasticate at Saint Genis-Laval. He passed the second part of the A levels in June 1951.

He was then sent to teach at the boarding school in Aubenas, where he was a member of the community of 25 brothers. There he also studied Spanish, and tried to perfect his religious culture as best he could. Then in 1953, he was sent as a student teacher, first to the scholasticate at St. Genis-Laval, then to the juniorate at Notre-Dame de l’Hermitage. In June 1954, having passed his first year of university (foundation course), he began the first of his stays in Spain. His military service was replaced by a long traineeship in Marist establishments in Greece from 1957 to 1959. After this, his time as a young man over, came his time as school principal: the St. Louis de Ferrières-sous-Aubenas juniorate, in 1960-63; Bourg-de-Péage, in 1963-66; Aubenas, in 1966-72.

In 1972, Alain was appointed Provincial of the Marist South-East Province, and began his mandate there after six months of second novitiate in Velletri, Italy. As the Province had few Brothers, he combined his duties with those of the Principal of Saint Joseph’s School in Marseilles, and he even embarked on the ongoing training of Spanish teachers. But his appointment as Director of the Spirituality Centre in Rome (the former second novitiate) in 1978 cut short his role as Provincial and School Principal. He remained in this role until 1983, when he was appointed to the commission to revise the Constitutions in preparation for the 1985 General Chapter. The text of the Constitutions was finally ratified by the Chapter, and Br. Alain, elected General Councillor, spent part of his time on visitations introducing the new Constitutions to the Brothers in various countries. In 1993, when he completed his time as Councillor, he became leader of Notre Dame de l’Hermitage welcome centre.

It was there that he learned of the assassination of Br. Henri Vergès in 1994. In 2000, he took a sabbatical year in Paris before taking charge of the retirement home in Varennes-sur-Allier in 2001. There he worked on the cause for the beatification of Br. Henri Vergès, which took place in 2018. He then returned to Notre-Dame de l’Hermitage, where he played an active role before becoming a member of an international task force for the renovation of the house, under the aegis of the General Council. From 2008 to 2012, he was a member of the community of Les Avellanes, one of the major formation centres in Spain, and of the new Province of L’Hermitage. But that is probably enough about his many and varied activities and travels. From 2013 on, he was based in Saint Paul-Trois-Châteaux, where he continued to be actively involved as attested by his memoirs, which end in 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Already very frail, Br. Alain arrived at the Nursing Home in Le Montet on 11 July 2024. There he stayed only a short time before finally surrendering his soul to God as a faithful and multi-talented servant.