Background
Placide Louise Chapelle was born on August 28, 1842, at Runes, Lozère, France. His parents, Jean Baptiste Chapelle and Marie Antoinette de Viala, were noted for their piety and devotion to the Church.
Placide Louise Chapelle was born on August 28, 1842, at Runes, Lozère, France. His parents, Jean Baptiste Chapelle and Marie Antoinette de Viala, were noted for their piety and devotion to the Church.
Placide received a classical education at Mende, France. Later his uncle, afterward bishop of Port-au-Prince in Haiti, sent the young Chapelle, when his father died, to the college of Enghien in Belgium, and brought him to the United States in 1859 where he entered St. Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore. In this institution he pursued the philosophical and theological courses with distinction, receiving ordination to the priesthood at the hands of Archbishop Spalding in Baltimore, June 28, 1865, and a doctorate in divinity, maxima cum laude, in 1869.
From 1865 to 1869 Chapelle was occupied with pastoral work at St. John’s Church, Rockville, Maryland, whence he was transferred to St. Joseph’s Church, Baltimore, and, in 1882, to St. Matthew’s Church, Washington, D. C. To this important post he brought both competence as a pastor and experience as a man of affairs. He had acted as secretary of the diocesan council of Baltimore (1869) and as Archbishop Spalding’s theological adviser at the Vatican Council (1870). In Washington he attracted many members of the diplomatic corps to St. Matthew’s and won warm friends in official circles. In 1888 Chapelle accompanied Cardinal Gibbons to New Orleans, was secretary of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, and a promoter of the movement which led to the founding of the Catholic University of America.
On August 21, 1891, he was appointed to assist Archbishop Salpointe of Santa Fé, New Mexico, as coadjutor with right of succession, and as titular bishop of Arabissus. He was consecrated by Cardinal Gibbons in the cathedral at Baltimore, November 1, 1891, was made titular archbishop of Sabaste, May 10, 1893, and was inducted as Archbishop Salpointe’s successor, January 9, 1894. He was not, however, to be long in the Southwest. Transferred to New Orleans by a papal brief on December 1, 1897, he took charge of the see on March 24, 1898.
A few weeks later the United States and Spain clashed, with results that diverted the attention of the Archbishop from the affairs of his diocese. His familiarity with the ideals and laws of the Church, as well as with those of the United States, caused Leo XIII to commission him to represent ecclesiastical interests at the peace conference at Paris.
He was appointed, on October 11, 1898, apostolic delegate to Cuba and Porto Rico and envoy extraordinary to the Philippine Islands, and on August 9, 1899, apostolic delegate to the Philippine Islands. There he was confronted by a situation full of obstacles. American officials in the islands not only had difficulty in understanding the principles of the old Spanish order, in which the temporal and spiritual powers had been closely associated, but also naturally tended to sympathize with the revolutionists, who were anti-clerical. Archbishop Chapelle tactfully and successfully adjusted ecclesiastical affairs to fit the new regime.
Though his insular commissions drew him from his diocesan work in New Orleans for months at a time, he remained always active in the affairs of the Church and community there. Closing the little seminary at Ponchatoula, Louisiana, he induced the Lazarists to take charge of the present Seminary of St. Louis. On his accession the diocesan debt amounted to $135, 000; this he had wiped out by the end of the year 1903. His last days were spent in making a visitation of the parishes of his diocese while the yellow fever was claiming victims on all sides. Of this disease he himself died, on August 9, 1905.
Placide Louis Chapelle rendered valuable services to the Holy See and to the United States. During his tenure as archbishop, he founded 12 parishes and missions, brought the Dominican fathers to the archdiocese, and opened the Catholic Winter School in New Orleans. He was credited with the foundation of the Catholic University of America and was noted his assistance in solving problems in Philippine Islands. During the peace conference at Paris, he secured the recognition of ecclesiastical concerns in the peace treaty.
Quotations: “The archbishop possessed a sweet and most pleasing manner and was the charming center of the intellectual and social gatherings that were at rare intervals able to secure his presence. He was not only a great prelate but he was also a statesman, a scholar and a citizen of the highest quality, devoted to the public interests and teaching patriotism as well as religion. ”
Chapelle was a member of the Catholic church.
