Obituary: Joachim F. Smet, O. Carm. (1915-2011)

Leading Carmelite historian Joachim Frederick Smet, O. Carm., died at Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, on October 4, 2011, six days before his ninety-sixth birthday. Father Smet, who was a member of the American Catholic Historical Association since 1957, belonged to the North American Carmelite Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary. Father Smet was born in Chicago on October 9, 1915, to Belgian immigrants Joseph Smet and Juliana van Royen Smet. As a child, he spent two years in Belgium, where he was introduced to the Dutch language - one of the many languages he used extensively as a historian. He attended the Carmelite minor seminary in Niagara Falls, Canada; professed his simple vows in 1935 and his solemn vows in 1943; and was ordained to the priesthood in May 1942. He had received the name Joachim as a Carmelite friar, cherishing the signature of one of the witnesses to his simple profession - that of Blessed Titus Brandsma, O. Carm. Father Smet received a master's degree in Latin from The Catholic University of America in 1943 and a bachelor's degree in library science from the University of Chicago in 1944. He earned his doctorate in ecclesiastical history from the Gregorian University in Rome with a dissertation that he published as The Life of Saint Peter Thomas by Philippe de Mezieres (Rome, 1954). During his seminary years, Father Smet determined that he would write an accurate and reliable history of his order. For too long, that history often was ill served by those willing to repeat fictional renditions of Carmel' s history. The first general chapter of the Carmelites following World War II made the unprecedented decision to assign the composition of a history of the order to a young friar who had not yet commenced his doctoral studies. In 1948 Father Smet arrived in Rome to begin those studies and lived there with only a few interruptions until his death. Over the years, Father Smet accepted without complaint duties that kept him away from research on his history of the order. He served from 1954 to 1993 as editor of Carmelus, a polyglot journal dedicated to Carmelite studies. From 1959 to 1965 he served as an Assistant General, a position that entailed numerous meetings and extensive global travel. Moreover, no matter how busy he was, Father Smet warmly welcomed inquiries from all over the world by those who sought advice about the history of the Carmelites. In addition, it was well known that, for years, he took a long, daily walk to a convent in Rome to preside at the Eucharist. The historian Smet also was a published poet and a translator of poetry A selection of his poetry was published as Familiar Matter of Today (Rome, 2007). For years, he spent endless hours acquiring and cataloguing books for the Carmelitana Collection housed at Whitefriars Hall in Washington, DC. …

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