Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-07-25
LAzARISTS
Were Founders of the Congre-
cation of the Mission i'm
America.
They Taught Here I'm st. Thomas
Seminary Under Bishop
Flaget.
What Napoleon UneOnsciously
Did For the United
States.
BISHOP TIMON THEIR NOVICE
BY James A. Rooney.

Napoleon unconsciously did some
good things for the United States,
but nothing that bore more fruit
for the cause of religion and Chris
tian education in this country than
the suppression and expulsion of the
Lazarists from Rome, which event
ually led to the founding of the
Congregation of the Mission in
America, following the arrival at
Baltimore on July 81, 1916, of
Fathers Felix De Andreis, Joseph
Rosati and their companions, the
founders of the order in the United
States.
When Bishop Dubourg was conse-
Grated in Rome, September Is, 1915,
as Apostolic Administrator of the
diocese of Louisiana, extending from
the Gulf to Canada, he selected
Father De Andreis as head of a
band of Lazarists to found a SEM
mary in his distant mission. The
newly appointed Superior was then
thirty-seven years old and had been
fourteen years a priest, constantly
engaged in giving missions and re-
treats, preaching and lecturing to
the Propaganda students.
His assistant was Father Joseph
Rosati, who was only twenty-six
years old and had been ordained
only three years before. Naturally
he selected his young and energetic
assistant and Father Aquaroni, who
volunteered. So Father De Andreis
was appointed Bishop Dubourg's
Uina,. GannroI and Eofhar ID ncaff W.
made Director of the seminarians,
and with four lay brothers, one of
whom was Brother Blanks, and four
scholastics, they set out and after
many delays arrived in Baltimore.
They were guests of Father
Brute at st. Mary's Seminary until
the following September, and on the
third day of that month they began
their wearisome journey to the
West, reaching Louisville on No
vember 10. They were welcomed
by Bishop Flaget and remained at
St. Thomas Seminary at Bardstown,
teaching and perfecting their
English, until the arrival of Bishop
Dubourg with another band OF
thirty missionaries on December 81,
1917, and they reached St. Louis
early in the following year.
There the Congregation Of the
Mission began the noble work
which has made the name of the
Lazarists known, loved and honored
throuhout this broad land. After
teaching two schools, one for their
own students and one for secular.
besides preaching and doing all
kinds of missionary work that came
to their hands in st. Louis and Ste.
Genevieve, there came a request
from a number of Catholic families
residing at 1.-THE Barrens," in Perry
county, accompanied by an offer OF
$40 acres of land if the seminary
could be transferred to that place.
So in October, 1918, st. Marys Sem
mary at the Barrens began in pow
erty and privation the career that
has borne fruit in thousands of
priests for the American mission.
Among the earliest of the
novices at the Barrens was John
Timon, afterward the first Bishop of
Buffalo, and during his many visits
to Old Niagara, founded in his do
cese in 1856 as the Seminary of Our
Lady of Angels, by the Rev. John
Joseph Lynch, q. NJ, afterward
Archbishop of Toronto, he was
never happier than when reciting to
the delighted students stories of the
early days of the Lazarists at the
Barrens and of how he pursued his
studies in the old log seminary. the
precursor of the magnificent build
ings of a later day.
So Napoleon, the jailer of Plus
VII, was only as putty in the hands
of Divine Providence when through
his edict he gave to the church in
our country the pioneers of the Con-
gregation of the Mission, who under
God largely helped to shape her
destinies and train her Priesthood
Copyright.