Return To France
In 1823, Louis XVIII insisted Cheverus return to France. Returning to France, Cheverus became bishop of Montauban, on January 13, 1823 where his policy of tolerance won respect from Protestant clergy and laymen of the city. He was made archbishop of Bordeaux on July 30, 1826; and was elevated to cardinal on February 1, 1836, in accordance with the wish of Louis Philippe. He died in Bordeaux on July 19, 1836 at the age of sixty-eight.
His work in New England, covering twenty-seven years, included every form of missionary activity. He lived among the Indians, mastering their dialect; traveled long distances on foot, attending scattered Catholics; nursed the sick and buried the dead during two yellow fever epidemics; collected funds and built a church in Boston; and served as businessman, adviser, peacemaker, servant, and pastor for his flock. His devotion to duty and extraordinary tact gradually won the respect of many Puritans. Ministers invited him to their pulpits. The legislature sought and acted on his counsel. At a state banquet to President John Adams (whose name had headed a list of Protestant contributors to the Catholic Church building fund), he was placed next the guest of honour.
The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 credited Cheverus, more than any other, for the position that Boston then held in the Roman Catholic Church of America, as well as the general growth of that church in New England.
In 1950, an engraved tablet was placed adjacent to the St. Thomas More Oratory entrance at 49 Franklin Street. It reads: “Near this site stood THE CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY CROSS, established 1803 by Jean Lefebvre de Cheverus, First Catholic Bishop of Boston; Missionary to the Penobscot Indians; Friend of President John Adams; Advisor to our State Legislature; One of America’s noblest priests. He stood by the bedside of Catholic and Protestant alike. This tablet placed by a group of Protestant Businessmen, 1950.”
Read more about this topic: Jean-Louis Lefebvre De Cheverus
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or france:
“I am apt to think, if we knew what it was to be an angel for one hour, we should return to this world, though it were to sit on the brightest throne in it, with vastly more loathing and reluctance than we would now descend into a loathsome dungeon or sepulchre.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.”
—Anatole France (1844–1924)