(O. Z6cKLERT.)
BrsiiocrRapHy: Bingham, Origines, VII., x. 1, XIII., ix. 4, XVI. xi. 17, XX., vii. 9; J. C. W. Augusti, Denkwiirdigketten, i. 131, vii. 170 sqq., viii. 138-139, ix. 413, x. 319, 12 vols., Leipsic, 1717-31; S. Baumer, Geschichte des Breviers, passim, Freiburg, 1895; O. Zéckler, Askese und Ménchtum, i. 168-169, 2d ed., Frankfort, 1897; K. A. H. Kellner, Heortologie, Freiburg, 1901; DCA, ii. 2017.
VILATTE, JOSEPH RENE (ARCHBISHOP MAR TIMOTHEUS): Old Catholic; b. in Paris Jan. 24, 1854. After service in the Franco-Prussian War, Villatte passed two years in Canada as teacher and lay assistant to a French mission-priest, followed
Vilatte Villegagnon
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 188
by one year in the House of the Christian Brothers at Naumur, Belgium, and a second devoted to private preparation for the priesthood, before entering the Seminary of St. Laurence, Montreal, Canada. Several anti-Roman lectures of ex-Father Chiniquy, heard in the interval between the third and fourth years, caused spiritual conflict from doctrinal doubts. Unable to continue consistently his seminary studies, an invitation of the president of The Presbyterian College, Montreal, was accepted, and two years’ study there convinced him both of papal additions to the primitive Catholic faith, and of defective Protestant interpretation of its traditional teachings. Unwilling, however, to leave the Roman Church, he now entered the monastery of the clerics of St. Viator at Bourbonnais, Ill., but after six months’ stay, continuing inner conflicts impelled him to seek counsel from Chiniquy, who advised him to begin mission-work among the French and Belgians of Green Bay, Wis., and send a statement of his doctrinal difficulties to Pére Hyacinthe of Paris (see Loyson, CHartes JHAN Marie AUGUSTIN Hyactntue). The latter replied urging a personal conference regarding Roman Catholic reform in America, and a proposed ordination as priest by Bishop Eduard Herzog (q.v.) of Bern. Circumstances forced Vilatte, however, to follow Hyacinthe’s alternative advice to consult with the Episcopal Bishop Brown of Wisconsin, who wished to ordain him in the Protestant Episcopal Church, but Vilatte, adhering to the original counsel of Hyacinthe, later left America for Bern, and was ordained to the priesthood by the Old Catholic Bishop Herzog in 1885.
Vilatte’s missionary activity among the French and Belgians in Wisconsin soon won many adherents, including several ex-Roman priests as assistants. Reports of his successful movement in America led the Old Catholic priests and bishops of Holland to submit a proposal, which was accepted, to attach the clergy and missions to their hierarchy instead of remaining in quasi-connection with the Episcopal diocese of Fond du Lac. The successor of Bishop Brown, hoping to avert the prospective separation, addressed Archbishop Heykamp of Utrecht, asserting the orthodoxy of Anglican teaching and the validity of its episcopal succession, and concluded with the proposal that Vilatte be consecrated abbot-bishop with monastic jurisdiction only, instead of with the anticipated diocesan authority of a Catholic bishop. The bishops of Holland still insisting, as a necessary condition of conferring the episcopate, on the cessation of all ecclesiastical relations with the Episcopalians, the required separation was formally effected. But the promised consecration was withheld, and soon after the Russian Bishop Vladimir of Alaska, approving the confession of faith and the official acts of Vilatte in seeking to obtain a bishop for the Old Catholics of America, intervened and referred their status to the Holy Synod for determination.
While awaiting its decision, Vilatte also consulted with Archbishop Alvarez of Ceylon who, as the leader of a large number of Portuguese Roman Catholics, had received archiepiscopal consecration from the legate of the Patriarch of Antioch, assisted
by two Syrian metropolitans. Alvarez, likewise approving Vilatte’s confession of faith and official acts, offered to come to America and consecrate him bishop; but after a number of months’ waiting without a decision fram the Holy Synod on his status, Vilatte left America for Ceylon to receive the offered episcopate. After a careful consideration of his ecclesiastical position, the Patriarch of Antioch authorized his elevation to the hierarchy, and his consecration as archbishop of the archdiocese of America, which was conferred in May, 1892.
Soon after Vilatte’s return to America, Polish Roman Catholic priests in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities placed themselves and their parishes under his jurisdiction, and new missions were begun in other places for which Vilatte ordained priests as needed. The steadily increasing growth of this movement gave hope for the organization of a coherent Polish Catholic Church in America. After successive annual conferences of the priests and delegates from their parishes, the proposal to elect a Polish suffragan bishop was approved, and in 1897 Father Kaminski of Buffalo was chosen. Father Kozlowski of Chicago, the disappointed candidate, unwilling to acquiesce in the result, called in that city a second convention of his partizans, which elected him as rival bishop, but when he sought confirmation, Vilatte was consistently compelled to refuse him recognition. Failing after repeated attempts to secure the promise of consecration, Kozlowski left America for Europe, and was later consecrated rival bishop by Herzog of Bern. Factional strife among the Polish priests soon destroyed all prospect of an organized Polish Catholic Church, and Vilatte, becoming finally convinced that deliberate defiance of the canonical authority of their Roman ordinaries, rather than Catholic reform, was the impelling motive of the movement, advised them either to accept fully and freely the Old Catholic principles, or to return to the Roman Church. The evident unwillingness to accept required doctrinal reforms left Vilatte no alternative but to withdraw his approval of their movement; and in 1898 he consecrated Father Kaminski of Buffalo as suffragan bishop for those priests and parishes which accepted them. Soon after this, Vilatte left America for Paris to consult with advisers regarding his future course, interrupting his journey to ordain to the priesthood Father Ignatius (see Lynn, JosepH LeycesTer) and another monk of Llanthony, Wales. Being advised in Paris to visit Rome, after a retreat at the Benedictine monastery at Ligugé, Vilatte personally offered his acceptance of the plea of the pope to Eastern prelates for union with the Holy See; but after the solemn recognition of his episcopal character by the Holy Office, followed by months of waiting for a decision on his status, and a required retreat in the Trappist monastery of Mt. Mellary, Ireland, later developments compelled him to recall his acceptance on his return to Rome.
His presence in Paris impelled Paolo Miraglia, the leader of Roman Catholic reform in northern Italy, to write to him regarding the movement and concerning consecration to the episcopate. After careful consideration, the request was granted, and on
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May 3, 1900, Miraglia was consecrated in Piaeenza bishop regionarius for Italy. Returning to America, Chicago was chosen in 1902 as the permanent archiepiscopal seat, and a mission begun by Father Kanski. In 1903 Vilatte was urged by several Anglican clerical adherents to come to England to assist their proposed Catholic reform. The new movement seemed to promise success, and after being assured of the acceptance of the required principles by their designated leader, a married ex- Anglican cleric, he was first successively ordained de novo subdeacon, deacon, and priest, and then solemnly consecrated as a Catholic bishop. This third episcopal consecration conferred by Vilatte is especially noteworthy because the bishop-elect was not, like the;two preceding priests, a celibate. The precedent of Vilatte was followed by Archbishop Gul of Utrecht in consecrating several years later Arnold H. Mathew of England, who had married after his ordination in the Roman Church. In 1906, after the abolition of the concordat concluded with the Roman Church by the Emperor Napoleon, Vilatte was summoned to Paris by a league of French laymen, directed by Mon. Henri de Houx, members of different parishes in various cities, who were desirous of detaching themselves from the Roman Church, and accepting the associations law. He remained during a part of 1907, assisting their preliminary movement for the eventual organization of an independent French Catholic Church.
In 1909, after the death of Father Ignatius of Llanthony, the two senior surviving Anglican monks requested him to ordain them in succession to their departed abbot. Their petition for the priesthood being approved, the ceremony was performed in Winnipeg, Canada, where Vilatte was then staying during a visitation of his mission-stations in that part of America. During the last two years, Vilatte has been preparing for the establishment of a second center of missionary activity and the building of a monastery for the training of celibate clergy in the South for which land is to be selected and settled by immigrants both from America and Europe, for whose spiritual and secular welfare the brothers are already active.
Ernest C. MaARGRANDER.
VILLEGAGNON, vil’’ga/’nyén’, NICOLAS DU- RAND DE: Founder of a French Protestant colony in Brazil; b. in Provence about 1510; d. at Beauvais (near Nemours, 45 m. s.s.w. of Paris) Jan. 15, 1571. He early entered the order of the Knights of Malta, and served in the African expedition of Charles V., which he chronicled in his Caroli Quinti imperatoris expeditio in Africam ad Arginam (Paris, 1542). In 1548 he escorted Mary Stuart from Scotland to France, and in 1554 Henry II. appointed him viceadmiral of Brittany. He won the approval of Coligny for a plan of founding a French colony in South America as a refuge for the Protestants, and gained the cooperation of the king by pointing out that the power and glory of France would be promoted by colonization in those lands side by side with the Spaniards and Portuguese. Receiving two ships and a subvention of 10,000 livres, he secured many followers from the Reformed, since he promised