Brother Roger, Protestant Monk and Theologian, Dies

Roger Louis Schutz-Marsauche was born in 1915 in the Swiss Jura Mountains. His father, a Swiss Calvinist pastor, was "a mystic at heart," he once said. He encouraged his son to look beyond strict religious borders and, to impress this, sent him to live with a Catholic family during part of his schooling.

After graduating from the University of Lausanne, where he wrote his thesis on monastic life, Brother Roger grew horrified with the fall of France in 1940.

"The defeat of France awoke powerful sympathy," he once wrote. "If a house could be found there, of the kind we had dreamed of, it would offer a possible way of assisting some of those most discouraged, those deprived of a livelihood: and it could be a place of silence and work."

He rushed across the French border on bike and settled in Taize. When the Gestapo found out about his work hiding Jews, he was forced from the town, but he returned after the war with friends from Geneva.

Over the years, the commune continued to shun materialism. That took many forms, from destroying its archives every year to selling "profit-free snacks" in the coffee shop. Commune members ate stew and self-grown fruits and vegetables.

His audiences were mostly filled with youth who appreciated a message that challenged the world's cares. He once advised his flock to stop using "your time and energy trying to find out who is wrong and who was right."

He was so successful with garnering the young faithful that Pope Paul VI had once asked him, "What is the key to the heart of the young?"

"I told him we don't have a key and we never will," he said.