DIDON, HENRI. - Dominican, orator, b. at Touvet (Isère) on 17 March 1840; d. at Toulouse on 15 March 1900. From 1865 in Paris, he exercised his vigorous, effective, and thoroughly captivating activity in various cities (London, Liège, Marseilles, Paris).
Here, however, his preaching in the years 1879–80, on divorce and on the reconciliation of Catholicism with the modern world and its progress, together with applause also aroused very strong disapproval because of his excessively broad views and certain intemperances of language; he was therefore obliged to withdraw to Corbara in Corsica. In Oct. 1881 he returned to Paris, but, being forbidden to preach, he devoted himself to writing the Vie de Jésus-Christ (2 vols., Paris 1890), in which, although the exegesis is sometimes inadequate, the geographical, social, and religious setting within which the life of the Redeemer unfolded is reproduced with vigor and extensive information, the fruit of a broad and careful journey through Palestine. From 1890 he was director at Arcueil (Paris), where he sought to implement, in education, a discipline of broader scope and a greater adaptation to the times.
He also wrote: L'enseignement supérieur et les universités catholiques (Paris 1875); Indissolubilité et divorce (ibid. 1880); La Foi en la divinité de Jésus-Christ (ibid. 1894); L'éducation présente (ibid. 1898). Also useful for knowledge of D. are the 4 vols. of Lettres (ibid. 1901–30).