The bishop we either call crazy, or the one we love to not love…
Bishop de la Hailandiere, the man who was “second choice” to be the second Bishop of Vincennes. The man who “locked up” a future saint because she did not obey his authority. Hailandiere, who, perhaps because of his Gallican background believed that the bishop was the final authority and, perhaps, the only authority.
According to Fr. Robert Gorman, former archivist of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Hailandiere viewed his priests as “religious subjects”. This is not to say that he did not “respect” them, but I think it says that Hailandiere saw them “in their place”. The same way he viewed Mother Theodore, in my opinion, not as inferior, but as a “subject” to his own place as bishop and therefore, the final word.
Hailandiere’s “stubbornness” showed through in his resistance to learning English. Bishop Brute struggled with the language, but he always strived to learn it.
Hailandiere was born in Combourg, in the Archdiocese of Rennes on May 3, 1798. He was ordained a priest at Paris on May 28, 1825. He served as Vicar general of the Diocese of Vincennes. Hailandiere was named coadjutor of Vincennes on May 17, 1839. Consecrated at Paris, August 18, 1839, by Bishop Charles Forbin-Janson of Nancy, assisted by Bishop Louis Blanquart de Bailleuil of Versailles and Bishop Jean Louis la Mercier of Beauvais. He resigned on July 16, 1847, and returned to France.
He died on this day, May 1, in 1882. His body was brought from France and interred in the Old Cathedral, Vincennes, on November 22, 1882.
