Benedict Joseph Flaget - Bishop

Bishop

Flaget was appointed by the Holy See as the first Bishop of the newly-established Diocese of Bardstown on April 8, 1808. This was the largest diocese ever formed in the United States and comprised an area now covering 10 modern states, including Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana and others. Today this area includes 35 dioceses. Flaget, however, vigorously opposed the appointment and traveled to France in an effort to have it reversed. He was unsuccessful in this effort.

On his return trip to the United States, Flaget brought other early Sulpician missionaries to America: Simon Bruté, Guy Ignatius Chabrat, Anthony Deydier, James Derigaud and Julian Romeuf. The first two also became bishops in America. Upon his arrival, Flaget was consecrated a bishop by now-Archbishop Carroll on November 4, 1810.

Upon taking office the following year, Flaget found himself charged with the pastoral care of the western frontier of the United States, having the assistance of seven priests. He went on to build St. Joseph Cathedral in Bardstown as the center of the diocese and a seminary to train the clergy needed to carry out the work of the diocese. He was one of only two bishops of Bardstown (along with John Baptist Mary David), though, since the diocese was removed to Louisville, though Bardstown remains a Titular See.

By 1817 Flaget was able to supply clergy to care for the French and Native American peoples living around the Great Lakes. He also began to establish parishes in Indiana and Michigan. In 1819 he proposed to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (which oversaw the American Church as a missionary territory) the subdivision of his diocese. Eventually the diocese was subdivided, the first division becoming the Diocese of Cincinnati. Flaget was the principal consecrator of that new diocese's first bishop, Edward Dominic Fenwick, O.P. His counsel was also sought by the Congregation in international matters, such as resolving a dispute between the Canadian Sulpicians and the Archbishop of Quebec.

Flaget attended the First Provincial Council held by the American bishops in Baltimore to organize the Catholic Church as it was beginning to establish itself in the new nation. Worn out by this and his other labors, due to his poor health he submitted his resignation as bishop, which was accepted effective May 7, 1832. The outcry at this was so great from both the clergy and laity of the diocese, however, that he was appointed to that post again on March 17, 1833. The Bardstown Diocese was later transferred to Louisville, Kentucky on February 13, 1841, becoming the Diocese of Louisville.

During a cholera outbreak in 1833, Flaget's care for the afflicted of all classes and creeds elicited general admiration from the public. In 1834 he received a new coadjutor bishop in the person of Guy Ignatius Chabrat, S.S., whom Flaget himself had recruited from a Sulpician seminary in France in 1811 and then ordained. The following year, Flaget left for Europe, where he stayed until 1839. By the time of his departure, he had erected four colleges, a large female orphanage and infirmary, eleven academies for girls, and had introduced three congregations of Religious Sisters and four religious Orders of men. After his return, he helped the Trappists to establish their first successful monastery in the nation in his diocese.

Chabret resigned as Coadjutor in 1847, and Flaget himself became confined to his bed for the last years of his life. He died February 11, 1850, and was buried two days later, after a Requiem Mass celebrated by his new Coadjutor Bishop, Martin John Spalding, with the sermon given by Bishop Purcell. He was buried in the undercroft of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, KY.