Latin Old Roman Catholic Church of Flanders (Independent from Rome and Utrecht) © 2006-2007 Mgr Philippe Laurent De Coster
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Latin Old Roman Catholic Church of Flanders (Independent from Rome and Utrecht) © 2006-2007 Mgr Philippe Laurent De Coster Monsignor Joseph René Vilatte, Mar Timotheus, Old Catholic Archbishop of North America, And First Primate of the American Catholic Church and Monsignor Jean Bricaud Founder of Gnostic Catholic Church (Biographical and Historical Accounts from various sources) Compilation by Mgr. Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., DD Publication Eucharist and Devotion © 1993-2007 De Coster (Belgium) Monsignor Joseph René Vilatte, Mar Timotheus, Old Catholic Archbishop of North America, And First primate of the American Catholic Church (Biographical and Historical Accounts from various sources ) Joseph René Vilatte was a Catholic of the Latin rite. As the direct or indirect progenitor of many Catholic and Orthodox Churches in America, France (his last years), and all over the world eventually. He is, so to speak, also the « father » of the Apostolic Succession of the Gallican Church of Mgr. Giraud and the Gnostic Church, in its apostolic branch, of Mgr. Bricaud and Mgr. Constant Chevillon only. His life and his work in Europe and in the United States are well-known from many books and articles, but there is a period that the historians seem to neglect: his return to Paris in 1924, his retirement in Versailles and his death. He was born in Paris, the son of a butcher, on January 24, 1854. His parents belonged to the region of La Maine in north-west of France, and adhered to “La Petite Eglise”. As the last priest of this Church died, he may have been baptised by a layman at first. His mother died soon of his birth, and Joseph’s boyhood and early youth were spent in an orphanage at Paris under the charge of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The sons of St John the Baptist de la Salle saw to it that he was baptized conditionally (sub conditione), and that he was confirmed at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, in 1867. During the latter part of the Franco-Prussian War he enlisted in the “Garde National”. After the siege of Paris and the horrors of the Commune, he decided to leave France for Canada, having been attracted by the appeals for settlers in rural districts. Soon after landing on Canadian soil Vilatte found that a teacher was needed for a school near Ottawa at some distance from the nearest Catholic Church. He acted as catechist, and on Sundays when there was no chance of getting to Mass conducted services. A certain priest seems to have been impressed by this pious young Frenchman, and taught him Latin privately, not unusual in those days. After two years, having received his calling papers for military service the young Vilatte returned to France. On arriving at Paris, he was told that seven years in the army would be required. To quote his very own words: “The spirit of liberty which I had imbibed in America, together with the memories of the horrors of the Franco-Prussian War, made me determined to leave my native land rather than re-enter the army. I went therefore to Belgium, and after a few months entered the Community of the 2 Christian Brothers, a lay teaching Order at Namur.” Whether as a conscientious objector or a simple deserter, he was in danger of arrest and imprisonment, just as the future cure d’Ars, St John the Baptist Vianney, had been about sixty years before this, when he evaded military service. Vilatte did not find his vocation with this institute, but left Belgium in 1876, feeling that he was called to the secular priesthood, and sailed for Canada again. His next step was to offer his services to Monsignor Fabre, Bishop of Montréal, who sent him to the College of Saint- Laurent, conducted by the Holy Cross Fathers, where he studied for three years. Vilatte relates that ‘the teaching of the seminary was so rabidly Romanist that all other beliefs were condemned as heresies, which brought eternal damnation to all that accepted them. He said: “During my second vacation I learned that a famous French priest, Father Chiniquy, who was devoting his life to preaching against Roman error, announced in Montreal a series of lectures…I attended with great fear several of them and returned to the seminary with my mind much disturbed”. According to his own story he left the Seminary, and sought the advice of a French Protestant pastor in Montreal, a professor at McGill University (founded in 1821), who helped him to continue his studies there for two years. Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, who later on must have gone to infinite trouble to investigate Vilatte’s past history, tells that after he returned to Canada in 1876, in addition to being a student at the College of Saint Laurent at Montréal (1876-1879), he also passed in and out of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the Dominicans, Friars Minor, Brothers of the sacred Heart, Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Alexian Brothers. It is more than likely that he was the guest of these religious institutes at one time or another, but one ventures to think that the canonical conditions normally imposed would have been made invalid, if not impossible, for him to be admitted to their respective novitiates all within four years. Bishop Grafton also reports that Vilatte worked with Congregationalists in Brooklyn, with the Presbyterians in Montreal, and that during the same period he was reconciled with the Roman Church more than once, (in the religious way of thinking of those days, led by fear, as at that time he was much troubled by religious doubts). He relates that he ‘saw plainly that while on the other hand Romanism had added much error and corruption to the primitive faith, Protestantism had not taken away Roman errors, but also a part of the primitive deposit of faith. In an effort to tranquil his mind round about 1882, he abandoned his studies at McGill University and, having been reconciled with the Roman Church, retired to the house of the Clerics of St Viator, at Bourbonnais, Illinois, a community of teaching priests and brothers, founded in 1835 by the Rev. Louis-Joseph Querbes in the Archdiocese of Lyon, which soon made foundations in Canada, and later in the U.S.A. After about six months, still in a very worried state, he met Pastor Chiniquy again, and discussed his spiritual problems with him. The advice given was that Vilatte should not return to Bourbonnais but should go to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where there awaited him a wonderful field of apostolate among Belgian settlers, who, so it appeared, were ripe for conversion to Protestantism, for they were drifting from Romanism into spiritism and infidelity. Chiniquay also advised Vilatte to write to Hyacinthe Loyson (1827-1912), who had been a Carmelite friar and a famous preacher until he was excommunicated in 1869. After he married an American widow, and three years later he constituted a Church known as the Gallican Catholic Church. So it was in March 1884, with the blessing of two priests of the Latin rite, that Vilatte, still a layman, went northwards from Illinois to Wisconsin. He regarded himself as a freelance 3 Presbyterian missionary. The city of Green Bay (incorporated in 1854) had developed from a fur-trading settlement started in 1745, and it was the oldest French-Canadian settlement in Wisconsin. Vilatte’s flock had their widely scattered homes on the peninsula between Lake Michigan and the 120 miles long inlet of Green Bay, the city which name lies at the southern end of the inlet. The first group of Belgians had arrived in this district in 1853. So numerous were Catholics in the Northern part of Wisconsin by 1868 that a new Diocese of Green Bay was formed from the territory of the Diocese of Milwaukee. By that time Vilatte arrived on the scene many Belgians had ceased to practice their religion, some having become Spiritualists. At Duval forty families of former Catholics had opened a place of worship. Vilatte hoped to convert these people to Presbyterians. Before long, so he expected, Mgr Krautbauer, who had been appointed second Bishop of Green Bay in 1873, would find his flock reduced yet more in numbers. This prelate died on December 17, 1885, and was succeeded by Mgr Kaizer, with whom Vilatte was later to have dealings. After about a year trying to convert the Belgians on the peninsula north of the city of Green Bay, he saw that matters would not work out. On the advice of Loyson, he approached Bishop John Henry Hobart Brown, the Episcopal Bishop of Fond du Lac. He pointed out that in the northeast part of his diocese there were many hundreds of Belgian and French settlers who had already withdraw from communion with Rome, and that they wanted nothing to do with a church ruled over by an Italian pope. That, here in deed was an opportunity to organize a purified Catholic church which would present the Gospel to the people as did the primitive Church, and exercise authority according to the spirit of free America. Vilatte suggesting that the Presbyterian mission should be taken over by the Diocese of Fond du Lac as an Old Catholic outpost. Bishop Brown, who was a broad-minded High Churchman, replied that he had already heard of Vilatte's mission work, and that he would be glad to help the movement. He explained that it would help promote good relations between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Old Catholic Churches, which in Europe were doing so much to break down the power of the papacy.