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Augustin Vérot
French-born American prelate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jean Marcel Pierre Auguste Vérot P.S.S., known commonly as Augustin Vérot (May 1804 – June 10, 1876) was a French-born American Catholic prelate who served as the first bishop of St. Augustine in Florida from 1870 until his death in 1876.
Vérot previously served as bishop of Savannah in Georgia (1861–1870) and as vicar apostolic of Florida (1857–1870). He was a member of the Society of Saint-Sulpice (Sulpicians).
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Biography
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Early life
Augustin Vérot was born on May 23, 1805, in Le Puy-en-Velay in France. He studied at St-Sulpice seminary in Paris.[1]
Priesthood
Vérot was ordained into the priesthood for the Sulpicians by Archbishop Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen on September 20, 1828. He traveled crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1830, immigrated to the United States, Passing north up into the Chesapeake Bay to the port City of Baltimore, Maryland, largest city in Maryland and then the third largest in America. The Archdiocese of Baltimore was considered the "premier see" of the Catholic Church in the U.S. and its Archbishop of Baltimore was the first to be episcopally ordained in the territory of the newly independent United States of America four decades earlier in 1791. Vérot taught science, philosophy, and theology at the St. Mary's College in Baltimore for 23 years.
He then was assigned to the outlying town to the southwest and served as pastor of Saint Paul Catholic Church in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland. Vérot served here for five years from 1853 to 1858.
During his tenure in Ellicott City he was responsible for inviting and securing the arrival of teachers and staff plus support from the Christian Brothers to the nearby Rock Hill College, founded three decades earlier in 1824 as a all-boys boarding school / secondary school in 1853. For decades of the later 19th century it was the only educational institution of higher learning in the County. Rock Hill suffered a disastrous fire a half-century later and closed in 1923.[2][1]
Vicar Apostolic of Florida
On December 11, 1857, Pope Pius IX appointed Vérot as vicar apostolic of Florida. He was consecrated as titular bishop of Danabe on April 25, 1858, by Archbishop Francis Kenrick in the Baltimore Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[3]
Since the new vicarate had only three priests, Vérot travelled back across the Atlantic Ocean to France in 1859 to recruit more. He succeeded however in recruiting and in bringing back an additional seven priests.[4] While in Europe, Vérot also secured additional funding to repair churches further south in the recently admitted new state of Florida (1845) and old earlier Spanish colonial territory in St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and at the southern end of the peninsula in Key West. He erected new churches on the west / Gulf of Mexico coast at Tampa, Fernandina Beach, Palatka, Mandarin, and Tallahassee, and staffed them with resident priests / pastors. Vérot also built Catholic schools in the vicariate and introduced religious communities to staff them. Five sisters of the Order of Mercy traveled from the further northeastern region of New England in the Diocese of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut to open a girls' academy n Florida. Three Christian Brothers from far northern Canada and Quebec opened a boys' school in St. Augustine.[5]
Bishop of Savannah
On July 13, 1861, Pius IX appointed Vérot as bishop of Savannah. However, he also remained as vicar apostolic of Florida.
During the American Civil War, Vérot condemned the looting of the Catholic church at Amelia Island, Florida, by Union Army troops. He personally evacuated several Sisters of Mercy from Jacksonville to Savannah through the battle zone in Georgia.[6] After the war, Vérot published a pastoral letter urging Catholics in the diocese to "put away all prejudice ...against their former servants". He also advocated a national coordinator for evangelization among African-Americans, and brought in French sisters from LePuy to work with them.[7]
Bishop of St. Augustine
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On March 11, 1870, Pius IX elevated the Florida vicarate into the Diocese of St. Augustine and named Vérot as its first bishop.[3]
Vérot was among the first public figures to promote St. Augustine, Florida, as a health and cultural resort. He made an annual visitation of the whole diocese, establishing churches and schools. He worked revive the memory of Florida's early martyrs, both Spanish and French.
Vérot's best-known writings are his Pastoral on Slavery and his Catechism. He took a prominent part in the Plenary Council of Baltimore and the First Vatican Council in Rome between 1869 and 1870. At the Council, Vérot called for the condemnation of the heresy that African-Americans had no souls and were not human beings.[8]
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Views on slavery
In January 1861, just before the start of the Civil War, Vérot delivered a sermon defending the rights of the slave states and the legal basis of slavery in the United States. He also condemned what he termed the "false and unjust principles of Abolitionism" and the Know-Nothing movement that persecuted Catholics throughout the nation. His sermon was published and distributed throughout the Southern United States as a Confederate tract.[9]
In the same sermon Vérot condemned the international slave trade (consistent with Pope Gregory XVI's decree of 1839). He also called for legal protections for free African-Americans. Vérot also wanted enslaved people to be allowed to choose their own marriage partners; to be treated with justice, fairness and morality; to receive adequate food, clothing and shelter; and to be given the means to practice their own religion and to receive instruction in it.[10]
For this sermon, Vérot earned the nickname "Rebel Bishop".[1]
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Legacy
Bishop Vérot High School, a private Catholic institution in Fort Myers, Florida, was named for Vérot in 1964.
See also
References
External links
Episcopal succession
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