123
Establishment of tke Dioceses, I847-I948
was important that all should be visited. The three men suggested were "well acquainted with the country, its inhabitants, and languages." 31 Dubuis, who had been in poor health, appears to have left San Antonio about the time Odin set out for New Orleans, probably to accompany him to Louisiana. Father J. A. Faure, who remained in San Antonio as acting pastor, expressed to Odin in August, 1861, the feeling of the clergy in regard to the rumored possible appointment of his friend. "If we could have him (Dubuis] for bishop, how glad I would be. Still the Irish- Americans here, at least some of them, would prefer Father Chambodut."u Early in 1862 Dubuis wrote his colleagues in San Antonio that he was planning to go to France for his complete recovery before returning to Texas and would probably leave on April 15. He failed to say how he was to run the northern blockade. 33 It is not clear whether he set out for France alone on the date planned, or a few weeks later in company with his friend Odin. At any rate, they were both in France that fall, for Dubuis was informed by Odin at Lyons of his formal appointment as second bishop of Galveston. The Bulls had been issued by Pius IX on October 22, 1862. 34 In a temporary chapel at Lyons, where Dubuis and many of his fellow priests then in Texas had made their studies and left in answer to the call of the first Vicar years before, the second Bishop was consecrated by Odin himself on November 23, 1862. "During the magnificent preface which followed the anointing of the head of the elect .. . the voice of the consecrator was lost ... He was thinking ... of the Episcopal See of Texas ... Toward the end, Mgr. Dubuis, in a tone trembling with emo- tion, said those beautiful and cordial words of thanks to the Consecrator, Ad mteltos amzos .. . and received the kiss of peace." 35 2 5, C. A. T. 32 J. A. Faure to Odin, August 6, 1861, C. A. T. 33 By this time the North had laid formal siege to the ports of the Confederacy. See Faure to Odin, April 4, 1862, C. A. T. 31 Odin to Purcell, June 34 The Register of the Grand Seminary of Lyons plainly states in the copy of the Act of Consecration that the Bulls were issued on this date. (Copy in C. A. T.) There has been much confusion over the date of his formal appointment, when he left Texas, and how he happened to be in France at that time. Cf. Sister Mary Carmelita Glennon, "History of the Diocese of Galveston, l 847-1874," (unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Texas, 1943) 1 153; L'Abbe J. P., Vie de Al<>ttseig,reur D11b1tis, 142-146; Laurence J. FitzSimon, "The History of the Catholic Church in the Area of the Diocese of San Antonio while Under the Jurisdiction of the Bishops of Galveston, 1840-1874," {unpublished copy in C. A. T.), 14. 35 This graphic description was published by an eye-witness in the Jo"r,ral d1 Roanne, and cited in Glennon, o;. cit., 1 54. Bishop Claude Marie Dubuls was born
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