Background
Van De Velde was born on April 3, 1795, near Termonde, Belgium, of a family of some social and political importance.
Van De Velde was born on April 3, 1795, near Termonde, Belgium, of a family of some social and political importance.
Schooled in the home of an aunt in Saint-Armand who sheltered a proscribed priest-tutor, the boy was later enrolled in a boarding school at Ghent. Thereafter he taught French and Flemish at Puers and at a college in Mechlin, where he also studied theology in the seminary.
Aroused by a patriotic disgust at Belgium's domination by Holland in the forced union decreed by the Congress of Vienna, Van de Velde was studying English and Italian with the object of going either to England or to Italy, when Charles Nerinckx, in quest of Belgian priests, induced him to accompany him back to America in 1817.
At Georgetown College, the young Belgian entered the Society of Jesus, and both taught in the college and followed courses in theology.
Ordained by Archbishop Ambrose Marechal on September 25, 1827, James served about four years as chaplain at the Visitation Convent and attended missions in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1831, he was ordered to St. Louis University, where he became vice-president (1833) and president (1840 - 43).
Four years after taking his solemn vows, he represented the vice-province of Missouri in the congregation of procurators of the Society assembled at Rome (1841) and came to know Pope Gregory XVI. As vice-provincial of Missouri (1843 - 48), he erected several churches, fostered the Jesuit missions of the far West, built an enlarged novitiate for the growing Society, and represented the province at the Sixth Council of Baltimore (1846).
In 1848, when he was procurator and socius to the vice-provincial, he was named a successor to Bishop William Quarter of Chicago, with the command to accept the undesired honor. Consecrated by Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick at St. Louis, Van de Velde undertook the burden, which was aggravated by the apparent hostility of some Irish priests who wanted neither a Jesuit nor a Belgian ordinary, regardless of his decided merits and recognized the character as a scholar and self-sacrificing priest.
At Chicago, his tenure was brief and unhappy, yet he succeeded in reviving religion in the old French settlements as an Irishman could not have done, dedicated several churches, and began seventy, several of which were for the recent German immigrants. His first petition to resign and return to his Society was refused by Rome. In 1852, the Council of Baltimore urged him to retain his see and honored him as its emissary to Rome with the decrees of the Council.
Apparently, Rome heard his plea, on July 29, 1853, he was transferred to the quiet diocese of Natchez, although for a time he carried the burden of the dioceses of Chicago and Quincy in addition to his own charge.
Van De Velde died suddenly of yellow fever, which he incurred in attending the stricken.
