BIGARD, JEANNE E STEPHANIE

BIGARD, JEANNE and STEPHANIE. - Mother and daughter, founders of the “Work of St. Peter the Apostle for the Indigenous Clergy.” The mother, Stefania, was born at Mortagne (diocese of Séez) on 5 March 1834 and died in Paris on 5 Jan. 1903; the daughter was likewise born at Mortagne on 2 Dec. 1859 and died in Paris on 2 Apr. 1934. Stricken by tragic family bereavements, and brought up in deeply religious sentiments, they offered their labour and savings for the financing of indigenous seminaries, first in Japan and then in the other missions, and devoted their whole lives to this work. They had come to know the missions through the “Apostolic Work” (v. missioni) and subsequently through direct correspondence with missionaries and bishops of missions. The work, founded in 1889, developed rapidly; it naturally had its struggles; it was recognized (1902) as a legal entity by the canton of Fribourg (Switzerland), and in 1904, owing to the founder’s persistently frail health, it was entrusted to the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, in whose convent at Fribourg B. withdrew and subsequently died. In 1920 the Work was taken over directly by the S. Congregation of Propaganda.