BONNAND, CLÉMENT

BONNAND, CLÉMENT. — One of the greatest missionary bishops in India in the last century. Born in St-Maurice-sur-Dargoire (France) on 20 May 1796, he was ordained a priest in 1821, joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1823, and departed the following year for the Malabar mission (Pondicherry). He served as coadjutor to his bishop, Monsignor Hébert, from 1833 to 1836, succeeding him in the direction of the mission then known as the Vicariate of the Coromandel Coast. With tact and firmness, he addressed pressing issues such as the relations between the Goans and the "propaganda" missionaries, and the boundaries of his mission with that of Madura. At the Synod of 1844, in addition to measures for the advancement of the apostolate (seminary, schools, etc.), he discussed the question of the advisability of establishing a hierarchy in India, which, when proposed to Rome, seemed premature at the time. In a second Synod in 1849, he completed the work of the first. In 1850, with the elevation of the three missions (Pondicherry, Mysore, and Coimbatore) into which the Coromandel had been divided (1845) to the status of apostolic vicariates, B. became apostolic vicar of Pondicherry, which he continued to develop with new initiatives and works, providing wise guidance to his missionaries. In 1854, at the request of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, he traveled to Ceylon to settle differences between the two apostolic vicars Bravi and Bettacchini; and in 1858, while agitation over the Padroado question persisted, he was entrusted with a visitation of all the missions in India. He died in Benares while completing this journey, on 21 March 1861.