Death's Deceiver

...Under ordinary circumstances, his story might have ended there...

...Wherever he went, Machebeuf established dioceses, parishes, and churches that stand to this day, and he did this among people who were not always sympathetic toward him or one another...

...The great criticism of this approach-namely, that it ensured that the church would develop into an exotic sect sealed off from the larger culture around i t - - has been around at least since the Americanist controversy and still finds support in many quarters...

...As the young curate in a small town, he quickly became a popular figure among the locals and could very easily have lived happily among them for the rest of his life...

...Born in France in 1812, in a small village in the Auvergne, he was raised in a pious middle-class home, entered the seminary at an early age, and was ordained a priest in 1836...

...Although he found himself facing steady hardships TANTUR ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE FORTHEOLOGICAL STUDIES Founded by the University of Notre Dame at the requesl of Pope Pan~ ~'1 Ecumenical Program of Continuing Education and Spiritual Renewal for Clergy, Lay Ministers and Teachers and occasional danger, this was not the heroic vocation Machebeuf had envisioned in France when he volunteered for the missions: Endlessly drawn-out lawsuits over deeds and boundaries, constant petitions and visitations to Rome in search of additional personnel, interminable feuds between bishops and priests, and insuperable debts were the daily face of his apostolate...

...A distinctive feature of Catholic ecclesiology during this period was that the church relied for its lead_9 Theolnoical and biblical studies in context _9 Located in Jerusalem _9 Excellent facilities in scenic location _9 International, ecumenical, inlerreligious studies _9 Courses and lield trips _9 Worship and daily common prayer Dates for Proorams of Continuing Education and Spiritual Renewal: _9 January 12 through April 8, 1999 _9 May 26 through Jane 24, 1909 _9 June 29 through July 28, 1999 _9 Snplember 7 Ibrnuoh December 2, 1999 _9 December 14, 1999 lhrougb January 11, 2000 _9 January 18 through April 12, 2000 _9 April 14 through May 12, 2000 _9 June 2 through July 1, 2000 _9 July 4 through August 1, 2000 _9 September 12 through December 7, 2000 _9 December 18, 2000 through January 11, 2001 For information and an application: Rector Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies P,O...

...As long as they were present and active, the elaborate economy of grace that functioned within the rites and sacraments of the church provided what was necessary for the sustenance of the church-at-large...

...Despite this corruptible proximity, I hope I have maintained the same cool objectivity that the author displays in appraising his Uncle Alec as a man who "worked hard all his life, and wrote many books, each worse than the last...

...All the more reason, then, why we should be grateful for Lynn Bridgers's timely biography of Joseph Machebeuf, the French missionary who became the first bishop of Denver...

...And Machebeuf himself was an unimpressive figure in many regards: intellectually uninspired, barely literate in English or Spanish, often narrow-minded in his estimation of cultures other than his own, he seems, to contemporary eyes, an unlikely success in the mission fields...

...From that moment, I never treated anything he had to say on faith or morals very seriously," Bron writes...

...Instead, inspired by a chance meeting with the elderly Bishop Flaget of Bardstown, Kentucky, Machebeuf put himself forward as a candidate for the Society of Foreign Missions in 1839 and Commonweal 3 9 September 11, 1998 was eventually sent to America at precisely that moment when the great waves of European immigration were transforming the church there from a tiny sect far on the margins of public life into a mass organization controlling the loyalties of a large part of the citizenry...

...To Machebeuf and his contemporaries it was clear that the construction of the Catholic church in America entailed the construction of a new society capable of containing the Catholics themselves, and it was to this goal--rather than toward evangelizing unbelievers--that they applied themselves...

...Before the Civil War, only Catholics who lived in one of the great coastal cities had regular access to the sacraments, and even there their opportunities for religious instruction were severely limited as a result of the scarcity of priests and widespread illiteracy...

...PRIEST PIONEER James J. Uebbing C atholics who have grown up within a flourishing church may find it easy to overlook the efforts of those who first established it, and Catholics of a certain age may be inclined to discount the value of these efforts altogether...

...How can we account for this...

...The more universalist approach that is still in vogue today has only a brief history behind it, and it would be unfair at this point to judge it a failure...

...Three were consigned to the Waugh household, for Bron and two of his sisters...

...James Duffy is a writer living in New York City...

...Like the best narrative historians, Bridgers is able to show how events and societies are shaped by men whose actions are not always typical of their time and place, even though Machebeuf was in most regards typical of the missionaries sent to America in the nineteenth century...

...He also was the inspiration for Father Joseph Vaillant in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop...

...The story of Catholic settlement in nineteenth-century America has been told many times, and Bridgers adds very little to what we already know...

...But its success remains to be seen...

...However narrowly Machebeuf may have understood his mission, he must be said to have made a good job of it...

...Commonweal 4 0 September11,1998...

...Anyone who surveys the nineteenth century in this country will see that the story of the church during those years was preeminently a story of creation...

...But it is useful to be reminded, and Bridgers's account does remind us, that history proceeds more by circumstance than by design...

...Her point of view, however, makes a difference, as a missionary bishop's perspective will as a matter of course take in a very different scene than a historian's or a sociologist's...

...For Machebeuf, however, it seems that the constant struggle was not so much to found a church as to settle one...

...Energetic, docile, and even-tempered, Machebeuf was wellsuited to parish work and, as a native of the region, comfortable with the rhythms of village life...

...Bridgers's chronicle of Machebeuf's travails in establishing parishes, hospitals, schools, and convents makes it clear that, in the Anglo territories at least, the church followed the Catholics to these shores, rather than being brought here by them...

...In Evelyn's last years, father and son did enjoy "a distinct cordiality" and all admirers of Evelyn Waugh will appreciate the story of the mature relations between the two...

...All were eaten by their f a t h e r - - with scarce cream and rationed sugar-as the children watched...

...Box 19556 Jerusalem 91194 ISRAEL Telephone: (972) 2-6760-911 Fax: (972) 2-6760-914 E-mail: tantur@netvision.net.il ership on offices rather than people, on figures who were meant to be more or less interchangeable...

...But succeed he did...

...The figure of the pastor thus became more important than the pastor himself, in a paradox that impressed outsiders as one of the most distinctive aspects of Catholicism...

...It is often remarked nowadays that the church was able to command the allegiance of so many immigrants in this country because it was the only familiar society for them in an alien culture, but this exaggerates the strength both of their own alienation and the institution itself, at least in the beginning...

...Machebeuf's great task was thus not to spread the faith so much as to keep it alive, and from the first his mission in America was almost entirely directed at the already baptized...

...What is interesting is how little they stood in his way...

...Full disclosure: I am the godfather of Bron Waugh's first-born nephew...

...James Uebbing is the editor of Robert Lax's Love Had a Compass: Journals & Poetry (Grove Press...

...The simplest conclusion, which Bridgers's account points to although she does not state it outright, is that the success was not really his...