Background
Verot was born on May 23, 1805, in Le Puy, France.
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Jean Verot
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Verot received a classical education before going to Saint-Sulpice in Paris for philosophy and theology.
Career
As a Sulpician, Verot was ordained by Archbishop de Quelen of Paris on September 20, 1828, and sent to Baltimore, Maryland, (1830), where he taught for a number of years in St. Mary's College and Seminary. A catechism which was widely used, several manuscripts on philosophy, theology, and scripture, a few articles in Abram Ryan's Pacificator, and pastorals in his later years comprised his total literary output. As pastor at Ellicott's Mills, Sykesville, Clarksville, and Doughoregan Manor (1854 - 58), he took a personal interest in the poor and in the slave population.
In 1857, Archbishop John Joseph Hughes sought his services as superior of his provincial seminary at Troy, New York, but about this time he was named vicar-apostolic of Florida, and on April 25, 1858, he was consecrated as titular bishop of Danaba by Archbishop F. P. Kenrick in the Baltimore Cathedral. At that time, Florida had only three or four priests and as many dilapidated churches, established in the Spanish regime.
In 1861, in a sermon on slavery, A Tract for the Times: Slavery and Abolition, he outlined the attitude of the Church, which condemned the slave trade, imposed a code of rights and duties of masters and slaves, and sustained the property rights of masters in their Negroes. The publication of this sermon, widely quoted in the press, was suppressed in Baltimore by Secretary Seward. The first year of the Civil War saw Verot transferred to the see at Savannah, with Florida continued under his care.
The war brought ruin and devastation. Churches and religious institutions were pillaged and destroyed, sometimes wantonly, by Federal troops, as at Jacksonville, Dalton, and Saint John's Bar. Churches were rebuilt and restored; colored benevolent societies were established at Saint Augustine; schools were fostered; the Ursulines burned out at Columbia established an academy at Macon, while the Sisters of Mercy erected a school at Columbus; and the Sisters of Charity at Savannah welcomed Jefferson Davis' penniless children.
At the Vatican Council in 1870, Verot was the enfant terrible who spoke frequently in the negative on the question of papal infallibility, urged corrections in the breviary, suggested that for propriety's sake clerics be forbidden to hunt and kill game, and advised that instead of condemning obscure errors of German idealists it would be better to condemn any theory that Negroes have no souls. On July 13, he was one of the eighty-eight who voted non-placet on the question of papal infallibility.
Achievements
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Verot enlarged churches at Fernandina, replaced a church at Tallahassee, established schools for boys and girls in Saint Augustine, brought the Sisters of Mercy from Hartford, Connecticut, and introduced a number of priests and nuns, as well as a colony of Brothers of the Christian Schools, from Europe.
Views
Verot was virtually a missionary who faced torturous visitations in which he revived the faith of Spaniards and half-breeds, preached to the Indians, and built chapels and stations in outlying settlements. In his pastoral letters and in northern visits he encouraged Catholic colonists to come to Florida and was one of the first to make known the opportunities there for emigrants from the North and from Europe.
Deeply impressed with the Spanish tradition, he repaired the ancient cathedral of Saint Augustine with the native coquina shell, excavated the foundations of the ruined Nuestra Selora de la Leche and restored the Spanish chapel, and enlarged the church at Key West.
Verot was especially disliked as a rebel bishop, yet he attended Andersonville, did all that was possible for northern prisoners, and furnished nuns as nurses in the military hospitals. With peace came the labors of physical and social reconstruction. Verot made begging journeys throughout the North.
