BIGARD, JEANNE E STEPHANIE

BIGARD, JEANNE AND STÉPHANIE. – Mother and daughter, founders of the “Work of St Peter the Apostle for Indigenous Clergy.” The mother, Stéphanie, was born at Mortagne (diocese of Sèze) on 5 March 1834 and died in Paris on 5 January 1903; the daughter was also born at Mortagne on 2 December 1859 and died in Paris on 2 April 1934. Struck by tragic family bereavements and raised in a deeply religious spirit, they devoted their labour and savings to financing indigenous seminaries, first in Japan and then in other missions, dedicating their entire lives to this work. They had become acquainted with the missions through the “Apostolic Work” (q.V. MISSIONS) and later through direct correspondence with missionaries and bishops in the missions. The work, founded in 1889, developed rapidly; it naturally encountered its struggles; it was recognized (1902) as a moral entity by the canton of Fribourg (Switzerland), and in 1904, given the founder’s increasingly fragile health, it was entrusted to the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, in whose convent at Fribourg the younger Bigard took refuge and later died. In 1920 the Work was taken over directly by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda.