His Excellency, The Right Reverend Bishop Richard Challoner, Bishop of Doberus was an English Roman Catholic bishop, a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the 18th century. He is perhaps most famous for his revision of the Douay Rheims translation of the Bible.
Background
Richard was born on September 29, 1691, in Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom. After the death of his father, who was a rigid Dissenter, his mother, left in poverty, lived with some Roman Catholic families. His parents were Protestants, but he was brought up by his widowed mother in a Roman Catholic family and was sent to Douai, France, to be educated for the priesthood.
Education
In 1705 young Richard was sent to the English College at Douai (France) on a sort of scholarship, entering the English College on 29 July. He was to spend the next twenty-five years there, first as a student, then as a professor, and as vice-president of the University of Douai. At the age of twenty-one, he was chosen to teach the classes of rhetoric and poetry, which were the two senior classes in the humanities.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in divinity from the University of Douai in 1719 and was appointed a professor of philosophy, a post which he held for eight years. At this period, though it was no longer necessary to have aliases, he was known by his mother's surname of Willard. His nickname was "Book".
Career
Thus it came about that he was brought up as a Roman Catholic, chiefly at the seat of Mr. Holman at Warkworth, Northamptonshire, where the Rev. John Gother, a celebrated controversialist, officiated as chaplain.
In 1730 he was sent on the English mission and stationed in London.
In 1741 he was consecrated as bishop coadjutor, afterward bishop of Debra, and became vicar apostolic of London in 1758.
Middleton is said to have been so irritated that he endeavored to put the penal laws in force against his antagonist, who prudently withdrew from London.
He compiled the Garden of the Soul, which continues to be the most popular manual of devotion among English-speaking Roman Catholics, and he revised an edition of the Douai version of the Scriptures (1749 - 1750), correcting the language and orthography, which in many places had become obsolete.
Of his historical works, the most valuable is one which was intended to be a Roman Catholic antidote to Foxe's well-known martyrology.
It is entitled Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholics of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion, from the year 1577 till the end of the reign of Charles II.
He also published anonymously, in 1745, the lives of English, Scotch, and Irish saints, under the title of Britannia Sancta, an interesting work which has, however, been superseded by that of Alban Butler.
He died on the 12th of January 1781 and was buried at Milton, Berkshire.