VEROT, JEAN-MARCEL-PIERRE-AUGUSTE. - Bishop, b. 23 May 1805 at Le Puy (France), d. 10 June 1876 at St. Augustine (Florida).
Ordained a priest in 1828 and sent to Baltimore in 1830, he was a professor in the seminary, then a parish priest, and finally vicar apostolic of Florida. Consecrated on 25 April 1858, he found himself, in his new ecclesiastical jurisdiction, grappling with immense difficulties, since Florida constituted a veritable mission land. He immediately set himself zealously to work, had the destroyed churches rebuilt, founded new ones, established elementary schools at St. Augustine, brought in priests and nuns, and in short promoted the spread of the Catholic faith in the most diverse ways. In 1861 he was transferred, while retaining the vicariate of Florida, to the see of Savannah (Georgia). During the Civil War he brought his word of comfort to the Northern prisoners in the camp of Andersonville, where, for lack of food and medicines and in inhuman conditions of extreme overcrowding, about thirteen thousand prisoners died in thirteen months.
Once the whirlwind of the fratricidal conflict had ceased, V. began the reconstruction of the destroyed ecclesiastical establishments. In 1870 he took part in the Vatican Council. An anti-infallibilist, he subsequently submitted to the will of the majority. In the same year the apostolic vicariate of Florida was suppressed and in its place the bishopric of St. Augustine was established, of which V., after renouncing the see of Savannah, was the first titular.
Bibliography
Silvio Furlani