Bede Camm

He was then sent to the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome for further studies, where he was solemnly professed on Christmas Day 1894 and ordained as a Catholic priest on 9 March 1895 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran,[2] by Cardinal Parocchi.

[3] Camm developed a strong devotion to the English Martyrs who were being beatified by Pope Leo XIII during that period, seeing them as heroic witnesses to his new faith, who were also natives of England.

While he was working on his book, he came to know Mother Mary of St Peter (née Marie-Adèle Garnier), foundress of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre.

She had just led her new monastic community from Paris, due to the anti-clerical laws recently enacted by Émile Combes, the Prime Minister of the Third French Republic.

He approached Mother St Peter and offered to help them with a legacy he had received from his father, clearing their debts and funding the construction of a novitiate for their priory.

After the corporate conversion of Caldey Abbey to the Catholic Church—among the first of its kind accepted by Rome, at the invitation of the abbot of that monastery, in June 1913 Camm went to serve as their Master of novices.

[1] Camm's own abbey started to experience problems during the years leading up to World War I, as its situation became precarious due to the overwhelming preponderance of German monks in the community.