Liturgical Organizations Materials, Ade Bethune Papers

Marie Adélaïde de Bethune (1914-2002), known as Ade Bethune, was born in Brussels, Belgium. She and her family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York in 1928. There, she attended Cathedral High School, the National Academy of Design, and Cooper Union. Newport, Rhode Island became her permanent home in 1938.

Her early years as a young artist in 1930s New York were spent with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, and her designs of Biblical scenes and common, working class individuals were often published in the Catholic Worker newspaper. This early work helped lead to her first church commission in 1936. Also about this time Bethune was persuaded by Day to take a 2-week course on the liturgy taught by Father Gerald Ellard, S.J. Based on her enthusiasm for the course, she became involved in the Liturgical Movement. In the mid-1950s she began writing about church architecture and how it could support and enhance the liturgy.

A strong proponent of Vatican II and its architectural and procedural changes within the Catholic Church, Ade Bethune worked to design and renovate churches to meet these new, open guidelines; she consulted for other church architects as well. Beginning in the 1970s, Bethune's expertise was called upon by many liturgical organizations and commissions, such as the Diocese of Providence (Rhode Island. Bethune was active during a transition period in which the Diocese's Liturgical Commission was reorganized and renamed to the Office for Worship. Regionally, Bethune was involved with both the New England Liturgical Committee (NELC) and Region 1 (New England) of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions. She attended meetings through the early 1990s, also assisting with liturgical workshops and serving on the search committee for the NELC's Maurice Lavanoux Award in 1979.

Ade Bethune was involved on a national level with the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) as well, beginning in 1974 when she was asked to join its Art & Architecture Commission. A major task of the commission was to write a booklet of art and architecture guidelines for member churches. The booklet was never completed, but became the basis for Rev. Robert Hovda's "Environment & Art in Catholic Worship," published by the FDLC.

As a “major twentieth-century liturgical pioneer,” Ade Bethune received the Frederick R. McManus Award from the FDLC in 1998 for her “significant contribution to pastoral liturgy on the national level.” She died in her Newport home on May 1, 2002.