Francis Silas Chatard was a Roman Catholic clergyman and educator. He served as a Bishop of Vincennes from 1878 to 1898 and Bishop of Indianapolis from 1898 to 1918 in the United States.
Background
Francis Silas Chatard was born Silas Francis Marean Chatard in Baltimore, Maryland, United States on December 13, 1834. He was a grandson of Pierre Chatard. The latter, an emigrant from Santo Domingo, whose slaves and plantation were lost in the negro insurrection, had settled in Baltimore, married the daughter of a fellow emigrant, and won local prestige by writing and practising medicine, in which he had been trained in Paris. His son, Ferdinand, had studied medicine in Paris, London, and Edinburgh, practised in Baltimore, and married Eliza Anne, daughter of Silas Marean of Brookline, Massachusetts, who had served in the War of 1812 and as consul in Martinique, where he had married an Irish widow of an English gentleman. Francis Chatard, son of Ferdinand and Eliza Anne, thus came of a distinguished Baltimore family proud of a diversified French, Irish, and native American ancestry.
Education
Silas graduated from Mount St. Mary’s, Emmitsburg. In 1853, he studied medicine under Dr. Donaldson of Baltimore and in the University of Maryland where he obtained his medical degree. After serving two years as an interne in the Baltimore infirmary and as physician of the city almshouse, he heard the religious call and enrolled under Archbishop Kenrick. Nativist rioting and anti-Catholic charges quickened his faith, and close contact with suffering influenced his decision to enter the religious life. For six years Chatard pursued courses in philosophy and theology in the Urban College of the Propaganda at Rome before he was ordained in 1862 and awarded the doctorate of divinity in 1863.
Career
About 1862 Chatard became a vice-rector of the American College at Rome under Dr. W. G. McCloskey, later bishop of Louisville. Succeeding to the rectorship in 1868, he headed the College for ten interesting years during which the Vatican Council of 1870 was held. As the nephew of Admiral Chatard of the Confederacy, he took special pride in presenting Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan to Pius IX with whom as a papal chamberlain he was on intimate terms
Named by Pope Pius to the See of Vincennes, he was consecrated (1878) by Cardinal Franchi, prefect of the Propaganda, in the presence of civil and ecclesiastical visitors of high degree. Later he was installed in his bishopric by Archbishop Purcell. Vincennes welcomed in him a man of polished appearance, a good linguist, an attractive conversationalist, an inspiring preacher, and a deep student of foreign politics. In a sense, due to his wide circle of European friends, he was an international figure in Catholic affairs. He ruled his diocese well and took an active part in civic life. In 1898 he removed to See to Indianapolis. On his twenty-fifth anniversary, he was honored by the whole state in ceremonies in which Cardinal Gibbons, forty archbishops and bishops, and three hundred priests took part. Although seven years later Joseph Chartrand was appointed coadjutor, the aged bishop continued active.
During the World War, he followed the fortunes of the American Expeditionary Force the more intently because of the enlistment of a favorite nephew in the medical corps. Inactive for the last few months of his long life, he passed away in 1918. Newspapers stressed the unusual fact that he was born at the same time and in the same cathedral parish in Baltimore as Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop John Foley of Detroit.
He translated from the French, The Memoirs of a Seraph, published a book of essays and a treatise, Christian Truths, and wrote a number of articles for the American Catholic Quarterly and the Catholic World, including in the latter publication, “Letters from the Vatican in 1870” which attracted wide attention.
Religion
Chatard was a member of the Catholic church.
