Pompallier, Jean-Baptiste-François

POMPALLIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE-FRANÇOIS. - Born on 11 Dec. 1801 at Lyon, died at Puteaux (Paris) on 21 Dec. 1871. A priest in 1829, he held the care of souls at Ste-Madeleine de Tarare until 1832. He was one of the four priests of the diocese of Lyon who gathered in 1830 to found the Society of Mary.

He took part in the election of the first Superior General, on 24 Sept. 1836, but did not take vows in the Society of the Marists. On 29 Apr. 1836 Gregory XVI approved the Society of Mary and entrusted to it the missions of Western Oceania; on 13 May 1836 the Father was appointed vicar apostolic of Western Oceania with the task of leading the first group of Marists on mission. On 30 June 1836 he was consecrated bishop by Gregory XVI, and on 24 Dec. 1836 he set sail from Le Havre for his vicariate, which comprised the Fiji Islands, Tonga, Samoa, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and New Zealand. On 10 Jan. 1838 he landed in New Zealand with Fr. Servant and Brother Michele. To Fr. Batraillon he had entrusted the island of Wallis, to Fr. Chanel that of Futuna. At that moment political relations between the French and the English were strained. In the Treaty of Waitangi, in 1840, P. obtained religious freedom for New Zealand, and the mission was able to develop successfully. In his zeal P. did not pay much regard to the fact that his missionaries were also religious, and as such subject to their Superiors. The conflict ended, entrusting to the Marists the vicariate of Central Oceania and in 1848 the diocese of Port Nicholson. He himself, with a few French and Irish secular priests, took over the diocese of Auckland. In 1859 a Maori rebellion almost completely ruined the missions. On 3 July 1860 P. became residential bishop of Auckland. In 1869 he resigned the see in order to return to France. He was then appointed titular archbishop of Amasia.

Nicola Kowalsky