BERTRAND, JOSEPH. - French Jesuit and missionary, b. at Fréland (Haut-Rhin, Alsace) on 9 Nov. 1801, d. at Notre-Dame de Liesse (Ain) on 13 Jan. 1884. A Jesuit from 1823, he studied theology at the Roman College (1828-32), where he also taught physics and mathematics. In 1837 he set out for India, as first superior of the new mission of the Society of Jesus in Madura; he governed at a very difficult moment, of ecclesiastical reorganization and of lively struggles with the so-called "Goan schism." Forced in 1854 by illness to return to Europe, he negotiated in Rome the appointment of the first vicar apostolic of Madura and was afterwards superior and spiritual director in several houses in France; in 1870 he founded an apostolic school at Issenheim (Alsace); in 1872, however, following the Kulturkampf, it was transferred to Amiens, and B. then exercised, and until his death, the functions of vicar at the sanctuary of Our Lady of Liesse.
B.'s publications must be appreciated in light of the polemics then very lively in Europe over the missionary methods of the Jesuits and their alleged opposition to the native clergy. His Apologie des missionnaires réguliers des derniers siècles (Paris 1848), later reprinted in a calmer tone as Mémoires historiques sur les missions des ordres religieux et spécialement sur les questions du clergé indigène et des vites malabares (ibid. 1862), responds in this sense to the attacks of Lucquet, Marion-Brésillac, Blancher and others. The work was extracted from the first volume of his collection: La Mission du Maduré d'après des documents inédits (ibid. 1847-54), still useful because volumes II-IV are a collection of unpublished documents on the ancient mission. Of the same documentary character, but for the restored mission, are the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré.
Bibliography4 works
Edmondo Lamalle