LE BACHELET, CAMILLE (FRANÇOIS-XAVIER) —
Jesuit, theologian, b. in Paris on 14 Jan. 1855, d. there on 23 Sept. 1925. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1878 with the intention of going to the China mission (for which he at once adopted the name Fr. Xavier), he was instead, after completing his studies, assigned in 1888 to teach dogma at the Jesuit scholasticate in Jersey, following it through its various relocations.
More inclined toward positive studies than scholasticism, he was a diligent investigator and examiner of patristic texts and theologians, whom he cited only after having read and carefully weighed them; acute and reflective in grasping, with regard to the truths he defended, both the patristic tradition and the *sensus Ecclesiae*. He contributed numerous articles to the journals *Etudes*, *Recherches de sciences religieuses*, and *Gregorianum*; to the *Dictionnaire de théologie catholique* he furnished two major studies on the Immaculate Conception: *L'Immaculée Conception dans l'Écriture et la tradition jusqu'au Concile d'Éphèse* (VII, cols. 845–93) and *L'Immaculée Conception dans l'Église latine depuis le Concile d'Éphèse* (ibid., cols. 979–1218); on the Society of Jesus he wrote two fundamental studies: *Les principes de la Compagnie de Jésus sur l'enseignement des sciences sacrées* (ibid., VIII, cols. 1012–43) and *La théologie dogmatique dans la Compagnie de Jésus* (ibid., cols. 1043–69). On Bellarmine, besides various articles in cultural periodicals, he left: *Bellarmine et la Bible Sixto-Clementine* (Paris 1911); *Bellarmin avant son cardinalat (1542–98), correspondance et documents* (ibid. 1911), which was to be followed by five further volumes on the Saint’s correspondence; *Auctarium Bellarminianum* (ibid. 1913).