Path to Sainthood and Episcopal Leadership: Mother Theodore Guérin and Bishop Célestin de la Hailandière in History and Memory

In 1904 the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary of the Woods, Indiana honored their founder with the publication of the Life and Lifework of Mother Theodore Guérin. Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, then the only American cardinal and living symbol of the Catholic presence in the United States, supplied an introduction, in which he praised in his sentimental style the character of the Sisters of Providence.¹ The book launched the sisters' effort to introduce the French-born Mother Theodore Guérin (1798-1856) to the Catholic public as a prelude to introducing the cause for her canonization as a saint. The cause was formally submitted to the Congregation of Rites in 1914. Through the following decades the sisters promoted devotion to Mother Theodore and prayed for the miracles gained through her intercession that would confirm her heroic sanctity. After the Congregation for the Causes of Saints revised canonization procedures in 1983, the Sisters of Providence expanded the documentation on Mother Theodore that was resubmitted to the congregation in 1987.² Her beatification followed in 1998. On October 15, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Mother Theodore a saint at a Mass in St. Peter's Square in Rome. She became thereby the eighth canonized saint of the United States.

In addition to modeling heroic sanctity and founding a religious community, Mother Theodore's life provides a story of conflict with a local bishop cited as an example of the adversarial relationships of women's religious communities and a local bishop occurring in the nineteenth-century U.S. Church. Her struggles with Bishop Célestin de la Hailandière, serving as second bishop of Vincennes, 1839-1847, were revealed in her 1904 biography. Such a revelation is remarkable for an era when the Catholic public was not accustomed to learning about behind-the-scenes conflicts reflecting badly on a bishop's behavior. His treatment of Mother Theodore Guérin secured his reputation as a misogynist and tyrant in the historiography of U.S. women religious. The principal incident of their conflict, as recounted later, has been described in several volumes related to women religious.³

In works citing the Hailandière-Guérin conflict, the focus is gender. To enlarge the understanding of their relationship, the author aims to examine the context of a new diocese's founding years and Hailandière's background, personality, and leadership. The narrative concludes with his resignation. He became, then, one of the few nineteenth-century U.S. bishops to resign his office for reasons other than physical illness or advanced age. The events of his tenure reveal unaddressed leadership and canonical problems in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Indiana and the French Connection

The relationship of founder and bishop unfolds in Indiana. The area shares in the region's colonial heritage of French Catholicism extended into the nineteenth century. The state's oldest European-formed settlement and home to a substantial Catholic presence since 1732 was Vincennes, located on the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana. French Jesuits ministered there regularly. When the region passed from French to British control after 1763 and the Jesuits were suppressed, priests of the Quebec diocese made periodic visits to Vincennes. Under the United States, the area came under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Baltimore after 1789 and then the Diocese of Bardstown in 1808. The Francophone congregation at Vincennes enjoyed the regular services of priests in the early nineteenth century. Meanwhile, Stephen Badin, the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States (1792) and father of the Catholic Church in Kentucky, reestablished Catholic ministry in 1830 at St. Joseph Mission at today's Niles, Michigan for southwestern Michigan and adjacent northern Indiana after some sixty years without a priest's ministry.

Bishop Simon Bruté de Rémur (1779-1839), First Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana (1834-1839). Archdiocese of Indianapolis Archives.

Establishing a diocese for Indiana was a topic for the nine bishops of the United States...