Mount Alvernia, Highest summit on Cat Island, Bahamas.

Mount Alvernia is a 63-metre limestone hill on Cat Island, the highest point in The Bahamas. Monsignor John Hawes, an English architect-priest known as Fra Jerome, built a small stone hermitage on the summit, where he is buried in a tomb he prepared himself.

Monsignor John Hawes built this monastery complex in 1939 using local stone to recreate a small medieval structure. The spiritual building has stood atop the summit for more than eight decades.

The hill was renamed Mount Alvernia by Monsignor John Hawes, known as Fra Jerome, after La Verna in Tuscany, where Francis of Assisi received the stigmata. Hawes, an English architect before entering the church, built the hermitage on the summit and spent the last seventeen years of his life in the Bahamas. He died in 1956 and lies in a tomb he prepared himself beneath the hermitage.

The summit is reachable from Cat Island airport by a moderate hike along a marked path. Good shoes and plenty of water are helpful, as the climb takes effort and the trail exposes you to direct sun.

Stone carvings depicting the Stations of the Cross line the climbing path as a form of spiritual guidance. From the top, the view sweeps across the entire island and surrounding ocean in all directions.