Joseph René Vilatte

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Joseph René Vilatte

Joseph René Vilatte (born January 24, 1854 in Paris , † July 1, 1929 near Versailles ) was a bishop of French origin. Its importance lies in the passing on of the Apostolic Succession to several ecclesiastical communities of the Old Catholic type outside the Union of Utrecht .

Joseph-René Vilatte, son of Joseph-René Vilatte and Marie Antoinette Chaurin, was baptized in the Catholic Petite Église , which was separated from the Roman Pope , and was accepted into the Roman Catholic Church in 1867 . In later years he worked in Belgium and Canada in various Christian denominations, most recently for a group of autonomist Catholics. On the recommendation of Hyacinthe Loyson , Eduard Herzog , Christian Catholic Bishop of Bern, consecrated him on June 5, 6 and 7, 1885 , as subdeacon , deacon and priest for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America .

In 1887 Vilatte founded the order-like "Society of the Precious Blood" (Society of the Precious Blood [of Christ], derived from the lay chalice ) and was elected bishop on November 16, 1889. He received the episcopal ordination according to the Roman rite on April 17, 1892 in Colombo ( Ceylon ) by Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares (= Mar Julius I of Goa), the bishop of Portuguese descent from a community of former Catholics of the Goa Patriarchate , who maintained their Latin Liturgy of the Syrian Orthodox Church . The Syrian-Antiochene Patriarch Ignatios Petros III had permission for the ordination of Vilattes as "Metropolitan of the Wisconsin Community in America" . (sed. 1872-1894) granted. Two Syrian Orthodox bishops from Malabar (India), Paulose Mar Athanasios and Geevarghese Mar Gregorios (= St. Gregorios of Parumala), participated in Vilatte's episcopal ordination, which was given the official name Timotheos. The Christian Catholic Church invalidated his ordination as bishop in 1898, presumably through simony , a judgment not shared by other Catholic and Orthodox authorities.

After his episcopal ordination, Vilatte made himself independent of his ordinators and worked in North America and Europe, expressly encouraged by Hyacinthe Loyson , in competition with the international Old Catholicism of the Union of Utrecht , represented in America by the Polish National Catholic Church of America . In 1898 he took his first episcopal ordination in the USA. After the separation of church and state in France (1905) he worked there. From 1907 he officiated in Paris, supported by secular circles, as "first hierarch" of the neo-Gallican " Église Catholique, Apostolique et Française ". In 1909 he founded the multinational "American Catholic Church" in the USA, for which he ordained several bishops. In 1916 he drew as Archbishop-Primate of the "Old Roman Catholic Church" in Chicago. In 1922 he resigned his office as their "upper bishop" and finally returned to France.

At Christmas 1924, the Église Gallicane des Louis-François Giraud awarded him the title of "Patriarch of the Gallican Episcopate", which he himself did not lead and which was ultimately revoked because of "apostasy" to Roman Catholicism.

From 1894 Vilatte negotiated with the Roman Catholic Church about his reconciliation , but at the same time carried out several episcopal ordinations (or appointments):

  • 1898 Stephen Kaminski († 1911) for the "Independent Polish Church" in Buffalo, NY
  • 1900 Paolo Miraglia Gullotti (1857–1918), “Bishop of Piacenza”, founder of the “Chiesa Cattolica Italiana Indipendente”, in turn chief ordinator (1904) of Jules-Ernest Houssay (1844–1912) for the neo-Gallican “Église catholique” libre de France ”.
  • 1903 Henry Marsh-Edwards as "Bishop of Caerleon".
  • 1903 Henry Bernard Ventham as "Bishop of Dorchester".
  • 1907 Louis-François Giraud (May 6, 1876 - June 2, 1950), ordained a priest on June 21, 1907 by Vilatte in Paris, elected auxiliary bishop on September 26, 1907, and bishop on June 21, 1911 in Aire near Geneva consecrated by Jules-Ernest Houssay. Since 1928 in the claimed successor Vilattes Patriarch of the Eglise Gallicane in Gazinet near Bordeaux.
  • 1915 Carmel Henry Carfora for the Italians of the "American Catholic Church" (doubtful)
  • 1915 Frederick Ebenezer John Lloyd (1859–1933) for the Anglophones of the "American Catholic Church"
  • 1921 George Alexander McGuire (March 26, 1866 - November 10, 1934), founder and primate of the “ African Orthodox Church ”.

On June 1, 1925, Vilatte put in front of the apostolic nuncio , Bonaventura Cerretti (1872-1933), in Paris from his confession of guilt and submitted to the Pope in Rome. Thereupon he was awarded a papal pension and the Cistercian Abbey of Sainte-Marie du Pont-Colbert in Versailles was assigned as his place of residence, where he lived freely, corresponded and received visitors, including the Gnostic Catholic Bishop Jean Bricaud ("Tau Jean II"; 1881– 1934). There he spent the last years of his life. Vilatte died of heart failure on July 1, 1929, was rumored to be laid out in pontifical robes and, following a private requiem , was buried in a small group on July 3, 1929 on the Cimetière des Gonards of Versailles.

Friedrich Heiler , the " High Church of St. John Brotherhood " and also the High Church of Austria trace their apostolic succession back to Vilatte.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Vilatte, Joseph René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Old Catholic bishop
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1929
Place of death Versailles