Background
The son of peasants, Rappe was born in Audrehem, Pas-de-Calais, to Eloi and Marie Antoinette (née Noël) Rappe.
The son of peasants, Rappe was born in Audrehem, Pas-de-Calais, to Eloi and Marie Antoinette (née Noël) Rappe.
He served as Roman Catholic of Cleveland from 1847 to 1870. He was one of ten children and labored in the fields until October 1820, when he entered the College of Boulogne (then under Benoit Haffreingue). After graduating in 1826, Rappe entered the seminary of Arras and was later ordained to the priesthood by (later Cardinal) Hugues de la Tour d"Auvergne-Lauragais on March 14, 1829.
He then served as pastor of Wismes until 1834, when he became chaplain to the Ursuline monastery in Boulogne.
In 1839 he accepted an invitation from John Baptist Purcell to join the Diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States, arriving there in October 1840. He was sent to Chillicothe to learn English from the scholar, William Marshall Anderson.
Purcell named him pastor of Saint Francis de Sales Parish in Toledo. Rappe ministered to the Catholic laborers on the Miami and Erie Canal and the settlers along the Maumee River.
His unofficial parish limits extended from Toledo to the Indiana border and as far south as Allen County.
He was a strong temperance advocate. Having hitherto labored by himself, he eventually received the Review Louis De Goesbriand as an assistant in 1846.
On April 23, 1847, Rappe was appointed the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Cleveland by Pope Pius IX. He received his episcopal consecration on the following October 10 from Purcell, with Richard Vincent Whelan serving as a co-consecrator, at Cincinnati.
He soon established the city"s first parochial school, which doubled as a chapel. Rappe purchased an episcopal residence in 1848, and also laid the cornerstone of the new Saint John"s Cathedral on October 22 of that year.
He founded a seminary at his residence that year as well. The Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary opened Saint Mary"s Orphan Asylum for Females in 1851.
Rappe consecrated Saint John"s Cathedral on November 7, 1852 and, the want of a hospital felt severely due to the Civil War, established Saint Vincent Charity Hospital in 1865.
Rappe eventually met strong opposition. His eyesight began to fail, and upon returning from the First Vatican Council he resigned as bishop on August 22, 1870. He left the diocese with more than 100,000 Catholics, 107 priests, 160 churches, and 90 schools.
He spent the next seven years at Saint Albans (town), Vermont, attending to the missions in Vermont and Canada.
He was later offered another diocese, but declined. He died at Saint Albans on September 8, 1877 at the age of 76 and was buried in Saint John"s Cathedral in Cleveland.