Carnot came to wider prominence as a patriotic writer of poetry, novellas and stage plays, using both German and in a (relatively) mainstream dialect of Romansch.

One result of the topography was that when Protestantism had conquered most Switzerland more than two centuries earlier, the enclave defined by the Samnaun valley had, like the Austrian crown lands to the north and east and the Italian provinces to the south, remained true to Catholicism.

[2][8] It was on the recommendation of Father Büchel of the nearby parish of Compatsch, who had also been involved in providing the boy's early classical education, that when he was old enough to be enrolled at a secondary school, Johannes Carnot was sent away to study at the Maria Hilf Kollegium (as the Jesuit secondary school was known before 1972) in Schwyz, some 200 km / 125 miles to the west and beyond several substantial mountain ranges.

Decades later, as an aging monk, Carnot would write of the acute and sustained homesickness from which he had suffered, and the recollection of which still caused him anguish so many years later.

But according to at least one source he already quietly shared his mother's unspoken wish that he should become a priest,[8] and on 4 November 1885 he entered the Benedictine monastery at Disentis and took the Order Name of "Maurus".

[10][11] He subsequently bowed to the wishes of his abbot and, following a lengthy period of resistance, in 1894 accepted the office of dean, which he would retain for 31 years.

He had never been to Disentis until his vocation moved him to enter the monastery there in 1885, but very soon after arriving he wrote in a letter that "ten pairs of oxen" would not be enough to remove him from it.

[12] He received and where possible accepted frequent invitations for the cities and villages in German-speaking Switzerland to preach to people on feast days.

[12] In the Disentis monastery school Father Maurus had the opportunity to teach his favourite subjects: Latin, Greek, German and History.

[10] He founded and then led the school's "German student academy" which would produce a number of future parliamentarians, popular orators and preachers.

In the context of the revival of local cultures and languages/dialects that was a feature of the early decades of the twentieth century, Carnot understood, as few others did, how to introduce Romansch literature and history into the school curriculum.

But there was also a warning that he would deliver: "I am there to lead you to the water: if you do not want to drank, you damage only yourselves" ("Ich bin da, führe euch zur Tränke; wenn ihr nicht trinken wollt, ist es euer Schaden."[13]).

His first dramas, "Plazidus", "Armas e Larmas en la Cadi" (based on the aftermath of the invasion of the region by French troops in 1798/99) and "Friedensengel" ("Angel of Peace") all appeared before 1900.

[10][15] In his final stage work, "Die Passion", Father Carnot set aside all secular legends and adhered strictly to the corresponding Gospel narrative.

It was used to replace a German translation of "Robinson Crusoe" (which Decurtins thought "too lightweight") as a compulsory text for school curricula in Graubünden.

[19] Father Maurus also gave much joy and entertainment to many with his so-called "Calendar tales", short stories published (almost) annually during his later decades.

[15] His final published prose work, the relatively substantial novella "Die Geschichte des Jörg Jenatsch", appeared in 1930.

In 1914, "at the insistence of his friends", a collection of his lyric poems appeared in a single volume which at the time was considered by some to be the most significant book published that year in Switzerland.

[15][21] The exceptional depth of Father Carnot's love for his homeland is apparent from his written work and from the choices he made during his life, but in Switzerland political centralisation had, for centuries, been an anathema: Carnot's patriotism was focused in the first instance on the canton of Graubünden rather than on the Old Swiss Confederacy or its Napoleonic successor, the Swiss Confederation.

He received a simple handwritten letter of thanks from the young empress which marked the beginning of an association with the imperial family that would endure for the rest of Father Carnot's life.

In May 1919 the deposed imperial family found another temporary home at the Château de Prangins in francophone western Switzerland.

Very soon after the former emperor's arrival in Switzerland, while still installed at Schloss Wartegg in the east of the country, he received what seems to have amounted to a quiet pastoral visit from Father Carnot, keen to see for himself "whether those who had been cast out might not be in need of consolation, a small ray of joy".

He produced a little book entitled "Grün im Tirol" of which little is known, except that it seems to have included or amounted to some sort of defence of the deposed emperor.

Carnot explained his position in a characteristically forthright letter addressed to a fellow churchman, Canon Vinzenz Kreyenbühl in or shortly before 1922: "As a non-Austrian I found I was the only one who could, through as long and sad period, use my pen as a sword with which the defend the emperor, in my little book "Grün im Tirol", against the foul-spirited slander and persecution to which he was being subjected".