Bernard Bernard (21 July 1821 in Mogues,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

– 28 October 1895) was a French

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

and

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. He was the first Prefect Apostolic of

and Lapland from 1869 to 1887.

Life

Bernard was educated as a priest in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and received his consecration in Reims by Cardinal

Thomas-Marie-Joseph Gousset Thomas-Marie-Joseph Gousset (born at Montigny-lès-Cherlieu, a village of Franche-Comté, in 1792; died at Reims in 1866) was a French cardinal and theologian. The son of a vine-grower, he at first laboured in the fields, and did not begin h ...

(1792–1866). First a parish priest in the French Ardennes for a couple of years, he arrived in Norway in 1856, where he was put into service in the Catholic North Pole Mission (''Praefectura Apostolica Poli Arctici''). Later in 1856 he was sent to Iceland, which was a part of the North Pole Mission, where he arrived in 1857. Together with Jean-Baptiste Baudoin (1831–1875), Bernard was the first Catholic priest to serve in

after the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, where they built a small chapel at the Landakot farmstead near

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

. They met with a difficult reception and in 1862 Bernard left the country, while Baudoin persevered until 1875. On April 5, 1869, Bernard was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Norway and Lapland with residence in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

. For reasons of health, Bernard resigned as Prefect Apostolic in 1887 and left Norway. He was followed by the Luxembourg priest Johannes Olav Fallize (1844–1933),See the article on The apostolic prefecture in Norway. from 1892

Titular Bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...

of Elusa, under whom the mission steadily developed, although not yet large.

Secondary literature on Bernard

* Gunnar F. Guðmundsson, ''Kaþólskt trúboð á Íslandi 1857-1875'', Reykjavík: Sagnfræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands 1987. * ''St. Ansgar. Jahrbuch des St.-Ansgarius Werkes'', Cologne 1983, pp 70–81.

Notes

External links

* Wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Norway * http://www.vortex.is/catholica/singk.html (in Icelandic) {{authority control 1821 births 1895 deaths 19th-century French Roman Catholic priests Apostolic prefects Christian missionaries in Iceland Catholic Church in Iceland Catholic Church in Norway

Life

Secondary literature on Bernard

See also

Notes

External links