Background
Benedict J. Flaget was born on November 7, 1763, in Contournât, now part of the commune of Saint-Julien-de-Coppel, in the ancient Province of Auvergne in the center of the Kingdom of France (present-day France).
Benedict J. Flaget was born on November 7, 1763, in Contournât, now part of the commune of Saint-Julien-de-Coppel, in the ancient Province of Auvergne in the center of the Kingdom of France (present-day France).
As his mother died in his infancy, Flaget was reared and educated by an aunt who sent him to the neighboring college of Billom.
At the age of seventeen, he entered the University of Clermont, paying his expenses by tutoring.
In 1783, Flaget entered the Sulpician Seminary at Clermont, then went to Issy, near Paris.
Ordained in 1786, Flaget taught dogma and moral theology at the Seminary of Nantes and later at the Seminary of Angers where he was associated with John Baptist Mary David. When the latter institution was seized by the Revolutionists, Flaget escaped and found refuge with friends in Billom.
Then, with the permission of Superior-General Emery, he set sail with Fathers Badin and David for America, where they were welcomed by Bishop Carroll. Flaget was assigned to Vincennes, but was delayed on the way for six months at Pittsburgh because of low water. Here he won the friendship of General Wayne, commandant at the post, to whom he had letters from Carroll. Going down the Ohio on a flatboat, he stopped at the little post of Cincinnati and again at Louisville, a village of a fewhouses, where his former superior at Issy, Father Richard, was stationed as a missionary.
At the falls of the Ohio he met George Rogers Clark, who escorted him to the small French settlement of Vincennes in December 1792. He found affairs there in bad condition, since the Creoles and half-breeds had been long without a priest, but he quickened their religious life, regularized their marriages, and baptized their children. Despite a threatening Indian outbreak, the missionary offered to go on tour among the western tribesmen.
Flaget was recalled, however, in 1795, to serve as vice-rector and as a teacher at Georgetown College. There he met President Washington whom he warmly admired.
Three years later he was sent to Havana to aid in founding a projected Sulpician Seminary which did not materialize. While in Cuba, he eked out a living by tutoring a wealthy Spanish planter and enjoyed the society of Louis Philippe, an honored exile.
He returned to the United States in 1801 bringing a score of Spanish students to Saint Mary’s in Baltimore, where he taught for eight years. It was at this time that he seriously thought of joining the rigorous Trappist community. From this quiet retreat he was named by Rome to the newly established See of Bardstown on Bishop Carroll’s recommendation and at the suggestion of Father Badin who was still serving the Kentucky missions. Overwhelmed by the appointment, he sought in vain through Carroll and his superior to avoid the honorable burden for which in his humility he felt so unworthy.
Flaget went abroad, seeking the advice of Doctor Emery, and was ordered to accept the bishopric with the understanding that he could continue a Sulpician.
On his return to Baltimore, he made a retreat for forty days before his consecration by Archbishop Carroll on November 4, 1810, and then journeyed to Bardstown. He found there a primitive missionary diocese with Fathers Nerinckx, Badin, O’Flynn, and four Dominicans serving 1, 000 Catholic families and native tribesmen. Flaget entered the work with a will. He did ordinary missionary work, traveling throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, the Northwest, and Canada.
In 1817, he rode on horseback to Saint Louis where he installed Bishop Dubourg. In answer to a petition of General Harrison and the people of Vincennes for a permanent priest, he again visited his old mission. At Detroit he was hospitably received by General Cass whose kindness was frequently noted in various missionary journals. Flaget was always active among the Indians, and in 1818 was a counselor for 10, 000 Indians at Saint Mary’s during a peace conference with federal agents.
In 1817, his episcopal labors were somewhat lightened by the appointment of Bishop David as coadjutor. An indication of his growing influence was seen by Rome’s request for his advice in the creation of new dioceses, in the Hogan schism, in the controversy between the Sulpicians and the bishop of Quebec, and his frequent services in consecrating newly appointed ecclesiastics.
Resigning in 1832, Flaget was succeeded by Bishop David but when the latter resigned a year later he was again given charge of the diocese with Bishop Chabrat as the new coadjutor. During the cholera year he ministered to the dying until brought to the point of death.
Recovering, Flaget spent two years in Europe. He visited all the French dioceses on a papal commission in the interest of the Society for Propagation of the Faith which contributed men and money to the missions of the Middle West. In 1841 the episcopal see was removed to Louisville, necessitating the building of a new cathedral. Benedict Flaget died on February 11, 1850, in Louisville, Kentucky, and was buried two days later, after a Requiem Mass celebrated by his new Coadjutor Bishop, Martin John Spalding, with the sermon given by Bishop Purcell.
Benedict Flaget entered the Sulpician Society and was ordained in 1786. He was one of several Sulpicians sent in 1792 to establish the first Roman Catholic seminary in the United States. During the next 17 years he served as missionary to Vincennes, Indiana.
Bishop John Carroll’s diocese of the United States was divided in 1808, and he consecrated Flaget (November 4, 1810) as bishop of Bardstown, Kentucky; his diocese extended from Kentucky to the Great Lakes, from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi.
Flaget became highly influential in the councils of the U. S. church, and his various religious establishments included St. Thomas Seminary (1812), the Sisters of Loretto and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (1812) for the elementary education of girls, and St. Joseph and St. Mary’s boys’ colleges.
Flaget visited Rome in 1835 and, at the request of Pope Gregory XVI, toured France (1837 - 1839). He retired (1848) to ascetic solitude.