Chabrat, Bishop Guy Ignace
1868, November 21
Date of Birth: 1787, December 28
No Memorial Card is Available
Guy Ignace Chabrat was born in Chambre, France, on December 28, 1787. He studied at the Seminary of St. Flour under Father Lavadoux. While there he heard the as yet unconsecrated Bishop Flaget appeal for missionaries for his new diocese. As a subdeacon, he embarked with the bishop from Bordeaux on April 10, 1810. He stayed briefly at the Baltimore seminary and was admitted to the Society of St. Sulpice on March 18, 1811. He went to the West with Bishop Flaget and completed his priestly studies under Father David. Father Chabrat was ordained to the priesthood in Kentucky on December 25, 1811.
Translated and adapted from Boisard; also adapted from Herbermann: The Sulpicians in the United States, and from Clarke: Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States, Volume III.
He served in the rugged missions in Kentucky and in 1824 became the ecclesiastical superior of the Sisters of Loretto. In 1834, on July 20th, he was consecrated as Bishop Flaget’s coadjutor. He thereupon assumed the major role in the administration of the diocese and oversaw the removal of the see from Bardstown to Louisville in 1841. Shortly after this he began to suffer a serious eye ailment which finally forced his retirement and eventually developed into total blindness. In 1847 his resignation was accepted, and he retired to Mauriac in France, where he died on November 21, 1868.