Bonnard, Clément

BONNARD, CLÉMENT. - One of the greatest missionary bishops of India in the last century. Born at St-Maurice-sur-Dargoire (France) on 20 May 1796, ordained priest in 1821, he entered the Paris Foreign Missions in 1823 and set out the following year for the Malabar mission (Pondicherry). He was coadjutor to his bishop, Msgr. Hébert, from 1833 to 1836, succeeding him in the direction of the mission thenceforth called the vicariate of the Coromandel Coast. With tact and firmness he dealt with burning questions, such as that of the relations between the Goans and the "Propaganda" missionaries, and the other concerning the boundaries of his mission with that of Madura. At the Synod of '44, besides the means for the advancement of the apostolate (seminary, schools, etc.), he treated the question of the advisability of establishing the hierarchy in India, which, later proposed at Rome, seemed for the time being premature. In a second Synod of '49 he completed the work of the first. In '50, on the occasion of the erection into apostolic vicariates of the three missions (Pondicherry, Mysore and Coimbatore) into which the Coromandel had been divided (1845), B. became vicar apostolic of Pondicherry, which he developed more and more with new initiatives and works, giving wise directives to his missionaries. In 1854, on the commission of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, he went to Ceylon to decide upon differences between the two apostolic vicars Bravi and Bettacchini; and in 1858, while the agitation over the Padroado question was still continuing, he was charged with the visitation of all the missions of India. He died at Benares while he was carrying out this tour, on 21 March 1861.