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, he was ordained a priest in 1821, entered the Paris Foreign Missions in 1823, and departed the following year for the Malabar mission (Pondichéry). He was coadjutor to his bishop, Mgr Hébert, from 1833 to 1836, succeeding him in the direction of the mission thereafter known as the vicariate of the Coromandel Coast. With tact and firmness he dealt with such contentious questions as those concerning relations between the Goans and the “Propaganda” missionaries, and the matter of the boundaries between his mission and that of Madura. At the Synod of 1844, in addition to means for promoting the apostolate (seminary, schools, etc.), he addressed the question of the advisability of establishing the hierarchy in India; when subsequently proposed in Rome, it was deemed premature at that time. At a second Synod, in 1849, he completed the work of the first. In 1850, when the three missions (Pondichéry, Maisour, and Coimbatour) into which Coromandel had been divided (1845) were erected as apostolic vicariates, B. became apostolic vicar of Pondichéry, which he continually developed through new initiatives and works, giving wise directives to his missionaries. In 1854, commissioned by the S. Congregation of Propaganda, he went to Ceylon to adjudicate disputes between the two apostolic vicars, Bravi and Bettacchini; and in 1858, while agitation over the Padroado question was still continuing, he was charged with visiting all the missions of India. He died at Benares while carrying out this tour, on 21 March 1861.