Pompeia
From Gr. *πομπή* “procession” (from *πέμπειν* “to send,” “to accompany”), it is the solemn procession in Greece and Rome that accompanies: 1) magistrates and sacred symbols to a consecrated place, a temple (v. PROCESSIONE) or to a site of public games; 2) the bride to the house of the groom; 3) the deceased to burial. In the *pompeia* there is always an implicit religious value.
Pompeii, Jean-Baptiste-François
B. 11 Dec. 1801 at Lyon, d. 21 Dec. 1871 at Puteaux (Paris). Ordained priest in 1829, he served as parish priest at Sainte-Madeleine de Tarare until 1832. He was one of four priests in 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 Marist Society. On 29 Apr. 1836 Gregory XVI approved the Society of Mary and entrusted to it the missions of Western Oceania; on 13 May 1836 Fr. Pompeii was named 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 sailed from Le Havre for his vicariate, which included the islands of Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and New Zealand. On 10 Jan. 1838 he established himself in New Zealand with Fr. Servant and Brother Michel. To Fr. Battaillon he entrusted the island of Wallis, to Fr. Chanel that of Futuna. At that moment political relations between French and English were tense. 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. paid little heed to the fact that his missionaries were also religious, and as such subject to their superiors. The conflict ended with the assignment to the Marists of the vicariate of Central Oceania and in 1848 the diocese of Port Nicholson. He himself, with a few French and Irish secular priests, took charge of the diocese of Auckland. In 1859 a Maori rebellion nearly destroyed the missions. On 3 July 1860 P. became residential bishop of Auckland. In 1869 he resigned the see to return to France. He was then named titular archbishop of Amasia.