Maréchal, Archbishop Ambrose
1828, January 29
Date of Birth: Not mentioned
Paris
March 23, 1828
The Lord has just called to Himself the Most Reverend Ambrose Maréchal, Archbishop of Baltimore. After being successively in the seminaries of Baltimore, St. Flour, Aix and Lyon – seminaries run by the Society – he was proposed for the See of New York, a nomination which he absolutely refused. But the Pope, willing to consent to his refusal only on the condition that he would accept the Coadjutorship of Baltimore, he saw himself compelled to accept the latter appointment – and we approved his acceptance. After his promotion to the episcopacy, he did not cease to regard himself as a member of the Society, he offered the customary Masses for deceased confreres, retained his room at the Seminary of Baltimore, and spent one day a week there to keep alive the ties binding him to his old confreres. He held on to these feelings of attachment to St. Sulpice up to the day of his death. In his will he left a legacy to the Seminary, and he commissioned Father Tessier – who was with him to the last – to inform me that he blessed God for having been admitted to our Society.
I think that the Society must congratulate itself on having nourished him in its bosom. He has honored it by his talents; by the warmth of his character, which made him cherished by his diocesan subjects and even made him respected by Protestants.
Archbishop Maréchal
He died on the 29th of January last, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, strengthened by all the Sacraments of Holy Church, sacraments which he received with piety and resignation. He succumbed to dropsy of the chest after a year’s illness and three months of extreme debility. On February 2nd the funeral was conducted with the greatest solemnity in the presence of throngs of people, Catholics and Protestants. I commend him to the prayers customary in the Society for its deceased members.
Accept...