Brulé, Father Réné

1941, April 29

Date of Birth: 1872, April 2 

Issy
November 16, 1941

Fathers and Dear Confreres:

At the beginning of last May we learned of the death of Father Brulé, former Superior of the major seminary of Toulouse, who had graciously consented to take up again his old functions in order to fill in for his successor, who was drafted into the military. We have had no precise details on either his illness or his death. Nevertheless it is only fitting that the life of this fine confrere be gone over for the edification of the Society.

Réné Joseph Brulé was born at Beausse in the Diocese of Angers on April 2, 1872, in the heart of the Anjou-Vendée. His family, of modest means, was excellent in every way. In it the Christian spirit was paramount. So much so that from his tenderest infancy, our future confrere had his soul steeped in that spirit thanks to the example of his parents and the deeply religious education they gave him. Réné Brulé’s family was a working-class family. The boy learned straight from his parents the meaning, the regard, the taste, and the value of work. He always remembered that basic lesson. In large part, it accounted for the successes which he would have and which would be of the finest quality, like the very beneficent influence he would yield.

From his first years at primary school, Réné Brulé struck his teachers as a remarkably bright student. The liveliness of his mind, the seriousness of his character, his deep piety, caught the eye of the pastor of Beausse, who saw in his young parishioner a soul on whom God might well have cast his choice in view of the priesthood. He prepared and arranged the entrance of Réné Brulé to the minor seminary of Beaupréau. And on the day decided on, our future confrere became a student in the minor seminary where so many generations of priests have had their training. Without giving it a thought – and probably without being aware of it – he was making contact with an institution which had been run by St. Sulpice before the [French] Revolution, dependent as it was on the major seminary of Angers. He was beginning to live the life that would be his to his last days.

Very soon, Réné Brulé led his class in all subjects. His lucid and penetrating intelligence, his power of reflection, which at that period was already evident, and his appreciation, steady and imperturbable, to work assured him the most shining success. He was well thought of by his teachers and liked by his fellows, for he was an exemplary student and at the same time the simplest and most cordial of friends. So his time at the minor seminary went quickly by, and in a manner most interesting and pleasant. When he left there in 1891, he missed it very much. The Superior and the teachers hoped to see him come back as a teacher. Himself, he kept for the house of Beaupréau the deepest affection and the most faithful memory.

In 1891, like most of his fellow-students of the minor seminary, Réné Brulé entered the major seminary of Angers. Immediately he was at ease there, captivated by the new subjects to which his fine intelligence gave itself with success. He felt taken by the atmosphere of serious piety which he was breathing and by the life he was seeing led by his new teachers. One of them in particular exercised a deep and enlightening influence on him. That was Father Laroche, his director, who had a clear and deep mind, the soul of a poet, the heart of an apostle. On more than one score, Father Brulé, to the end of his life, would remain the disciple of that outstanding priest. Our confrere would wait on him like a son in Father Laroche’s last days at Issy.

Father Brulé’s seminary days ended before he could be ordained priest. He was too young for ordination. But since he had asked for, and had obtained, permission to be admitted later on into the Society of St. Sulpice, he left for Paris in the last days of September, 1895. He stayed there for two years at first, during which he was ordained to the priesthood. In the year 1897-1898, he made his Solitude at Issy. The following year he continued the studies which he had begun at the Catholic Institute, and he took his licentiate in Literature.

Meanwhile, and unknown to him, his immediate future was being set. That future was going to be one which Father Brulé had probably not foreseen.

Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco (in the United States) had decided to open a seminary in his diocese to train there his own clergy. His suffragans, if they wished, might send there the young men of their dioceses who were preparing for priesthood. He at once thought that the priests of St. Sulpice might effectively help him to carry out his plan. In order to get them interested in his project and to secure some of them from the Superior General of St. Sulpice, he did not hesitate to cross the American continent and the ocean to come to Europe to plead the cause of the seminary he wanted to open. At Paris the Superior General of St. Sulpice had little to say and was less than encouraging. The Archbishop was not discouraged. He had his plan and he was going to move heaven and earth to accomplish it. Archbishop Riordan first made a pilgrimage to Lourdes to recommend his cause to the Blessed Virgin. Then he left for Rome and there laid out his project before Leo XIII. The pope, who at that time was exhorting the American bishops to open seminaries in their dioceses, fully approved the Archbishop’s project and urged him to plead with the Superior General of St. Sulpice to give him some of his priests. Right from the start Archbishop Riordan was more than ready to take Leo XIII’s advice. He returned to Paris, saw Father Captier, told him what the pope had advised, and pleaded that satisfaction be given to the Sovereign Pontiff and to himself. The Superior General of St. Sulpice let himself be swayed, and he promised to send to San Francisco a Sulpician who would get things ready for the opening of a minor seminary to which later on – if it pleased God – would be added a major seminary of Philosophy and Theology.

So it was that Father Jean Baptiste Vuibert, Prefect of Studies at the minor seminary of St. Charles in Ellicott City in the Diocese of Baltimore, was sent to San Francisco by Father Captier. So it was that he opened at Menlo Park (to the south of San Francisco) a minor seminary. That seminary, today flourishing and transferred under the name of St. Joseph’s, stands at Mountain View, south of Menlo Park in California.

In 1898 there was still only one Sulpician at the minor seminary, the founder, Father Vuibert, who was helped in his duties by some dioscesan priests. In 1899 two American Sulpicians, Fathers Wakeham and Hogue, were appointed to San Francisco. To them Father Captier added two Frenchmen, Father Serieys, Treasurer of the major seminary of Montreal, and Father Brulé. Thus it was that our confrere was directed to the United States, where he was for some years to exercise a much appreciated ministry.

He himself has spoken of his early days at the minor seminary in Menlo Park when, overseeing the young Americans in the Study-Hall and knowing English only imperfectly, he had to display authority and perform his duty, particularly when he had to say something to an individual or the group in order to maintain discipline. But very soon he overcame the difficulties and became a very respected teacher of grammar and literature.

Father Brulé probably left San Francisco in 1902. In 1903 we find him teaching Church History at St. Mary’s, the major seminary in Baltimore. Father Brulé had the esteem of everyone, teachers and seminarians. He was esteemed for his great intellectual worth and for his discreet and delicate personality, his presence, and his goodness. The seminarians for whom he was Spiritual Director have kept a very vivid memory of him. Even today, his students pay tribute to him for his knowledge and for the care with which he prepared his various courses.