JANDEL, ALEXANDRE-VINCENT. - Master General of the Dominicans, b. at Gerbévilliers (Lorraine) on 10 July 1810, d. at Rome on 11 Dec. 1872. A priest in 1834 and professor of Sacred Scripture at the Seminary of Nancy, he was shortly afterwards appointed rector of that of Pont-à-Mousson. Attracted by the noble figure of Fr. Lacordaire, he joined the Dominicans at the convent of La Quercia (Viterbo) in 1841, and two years later he was already in France to cooperate in the noble undertaking of re-establishing the Friars Preachers there. In 1850 he was summoned by Pius IX to Rome as vicar general of the Order, and his first concern was to transform the monastery of St. Sabina into a convent of strict observance, from which, one may say, the disciplinary renewal of the others began. In 1862 he was elected master general.
A man of government, a skilled administrator, of deep interior life, he strove to create almost a new life in the Order: he re-established several provinces, opened a great number of houses, promoted the study of the doctrine of St. Thomas, cooperated in the new editions of the Dominican liturgical books and of the partly modified Constitutions, and spread the Tere Order and the associations of the Rosary and of the Holy Name of Jesus. He took part in the Vatican Council, working with various prelates to rebut the objections of the anti-infallibilists; he accepted for his own the mission of Mossul, and obtained the union of the Dominican provinces of Spain with the center of Rome. For all this ceaseless labor J. is considered one of the greatest generals of the Order.
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