Tlte Vicariate, r84r-r847
103
their most essential needs. The number of priests was totally inadequate to care for even the faithful, yet a permanent mission among Indians would "mean much for Our Holy Religion," Odin wrote. Specifically, he asked for a grant to help pay the cost of transporta- tion of the men and women who had volunteered to go back to Texas with him to help spread the Faith. "There are twenty-two priests and ten nuns ready to follow me," the good Bishop-Vicar declared, "but not having the necessary means to pay their traveling expenses I will not be able to take them with me unless I receive help from the benevo- lent Leopoldine Institute." He pointed out that a small gift now would be of much more benefit than a large donation later. 11 The appeal for aid was successful. The Leopoldine Association granted him $1,406.00, roughly one-sixth the allowance made him by the French Society for the Propagation of the Faith. 82 His mission accomplished, Odin left Vienna on November II to go to Munich. The rest of the month he spent visiting Munich, Augs- burg, Stuttgart, Carlsburg and ·Strassburg, looking for volunteer priests, soliciting aid for the Texas mission, and arousing interest in the welfare and growth of the Church in the distant province. He then went to Brussels and was in Belgium for a while, where among other things he obtained for his projected cathedral a gift of 500,000 bricks, which a friendly sea captain took directly to Galveston free of cost. Again he visited Lyons and toured Belgium before going to Havre to see set out for America the volunteers he had recruited. The fruits of his constant travels and ardent appeals were satisfying. On March 20, 1846, he put in his Diary this brief notation, "15 missionaries left aboard the Elizabet/i,.Ellen." Among the band of star-eyed young men were several who were to attain distinction. There were Domenech of Lyons; the humble and unassuming Reverend Claude Marie Dubuis, destined to succeed Odin as Bishop of Texas; and the indefatigable Father James Giraudon. Many of the younger men had yet to complete their studies and were to go to seminaries in Missouri and Louisiana, where they would learn English while finishing their training. Back to Ireland went Odin still in search of workers. Before he sailed from Liverpool on April II, he succeeded in getting from the 81 The report is reproduced in part in Sister .Mary Benignus Sheridan, Bisl,oj Odin and the New Era of the Catholic C!,11rcl, ;,, Teras, I840-1860, pp. 105-106. (Unpublished Dissertation submitted to St. Louis University.) 82 Bayard, op. cit., 365, note 23.
Powered by FlippingBook