Gulstan Ropert - Elevation To The Episcopate

Elevation To The Episcopate

After Msgr. Koeckemann's death on February 22, 1892, Father Ropert earnestly begged his superiors not to be nominated as Vicar Apostolic. Superior General Father Bosquet ignored Father Ropert's request and appointed him as Provincial on April 22, 1892, and recommended that he be a candidate for the office of Vicar Apostolic left vacant by the death of Msgr. Koeckemann. Having received the bull of his nomination to lead the Hawaiian Islands on June 3, 1892, Father Ropert embarked for San Francisco where he was consecrated in Saint Mary's Cathedral as a bishop of the titular see of Panopolis on September 25 at the age of 53 by Archbishop Patrick William Riordan, assisted by Bishop Lawrence Scanlan of Salt Lake City and Bishop Francisco Mora y Borrell of Monterey-Los Angeles. Msgr. Ropert adopted an episcopal coat of arms of azure, containing a Saint Anna of Auray, accompanied by the letters A.M. (standing for Ave Maria) in silver with his motto being Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac (from Psalm 118: 94, meaning, I am yours, save me). During his episcopate, Msgr. Ropert witnessed the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the continuing migration of workers for the Hawaiian sugar industry. He built a new residence for the clergy in Honolulu, a wooden two-story building, flanked on all sides, except the rear, by a veranda. Subsequently. the old adobe house was torn down and on its site was placed a statue of Nôtre Dame de la Paix (Our Lady of Peace), which he blessed on December 24, 1893, the sixty-second anniversary of the first expulsion from the Hawaiian Islands of the first prefect apostolic, Msgr. Alexis Bachelot.