Chapon, Father Pierre

1915, April 5

Date of Birth: 1837, May 17

Paris
August 4, 1915

In the United States in the course of the school-year 1914-1915, four of our confreres engaged in our work have died:  Fathers Schwalbach, Berkeley, Chapon, Dumont. I have been unable up to now to express the traditional tribute of our remembrance. But even late, that tribute remains due, and I herein pay it to them for your edification and as a duty of piety towards those who belong to our family.

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Father Pierre Paul Chapon was born in the little town of Cours (Rhône) in the Diocese of Lyon on May 17, 1837. He made his early studies at the boarding school of the Brothers of Charlieu (Loire) and he always kept a fine memory of it. He liked to recall the great edification which he had received from a venerable Marist Father, chaplain of the house, who often spent eight hours a day before the Blessed Sacrament. Later at Boston before the Investigatory Tribunal he was happy to give as a witness evidence in the canonical process for the beautification of the holy religious. Perhaps he had dreamed of becoming a Marist. At least, for the priests of that congregation he always kept a lively admiration and a deep devotion.

From the boarding school he went to the minor seminary of St. Jodard (Loire), where he spent about three years – always at the head of his class. He filled there the role of choir master, a preparation for a like role given him during long years at Baltimore and Boston until a throat illness made singing impossible for him. For him it was a real privation not to be able to take the accustomed part in the church services and not to be able to sing High Mass in his turn. He liked to live over his years at St. Jodard. Though away from it, he was glad to support it and to help with his mite the rebuilding of that flourishing little seminary towards 1896. He was to suffer deeply some years later on learning of the confiscation of that house built exclusively with Catholic funds.

At Alix, the seminary of Philosophy of the Diocese of Lyon, he acquired a strong taste for the study of Philosophy, doubtless because the dominant qualities of his mind – reflection and deep thought – were better suited to Philosophy than to any other subject. He studied Theology at the Seminary of St. Iraneus. The notion of Sulpician vocation came to him when the Superior of the Baltimore seminary visited Lyon. He volunteered to be a Sulpician and to go to work in the United States. His offer was accepted, and, after the ordinary period of trial, he was on his way to Baltimore. His views were modest: “I was at least capable of being a bit of a teacher at St. Charles College.” He was appointed to the major seminary, St. Mary’s. There he worked for more than twenty years. On the opening of St. John’s Seminary in Boston, Father Hogan was happy to have Father Chapon as co-worker. He left behind at Baltimore a reputation for knowledge. He acquired the same reputation in his new post.

He taught Moral [Theology]. It was not by choice, for he had often affirmed his preference for Dogma and Philosophy. But the thought of duty was enough to bind him to the subject assigned; and the application of his vigorous mind, reflective and clear, guaranteed him exceptional competence. He was slow in giving solutions [to moral cases], but because they were known to be well thought out, they were accepted with full confidence. Too, he had a very delicate and unyielding Catholic sense. He very well knew how to recognize and defend the truth. Modernism, a subtle and involuted error, was particularly obnoxious.

But more than for displaying knowledge, he was at Boston revered for holiness and goodness. It was said:  he is a saint; his mere presence is a blessing. The Boston house had that blessing for twenty-one years. Numerous are the tributes coming from the New England priest-alumni who knew and admired him. He was a man of good counsel, a community man, a man of sure conscience, and always a man of obedience and exemplary charity. “What an inspiration for us,” said a young seminarian, “seeing him at his age always the first to respond to the sound of the bell, and careful to do all that the rule required.” He could not imagine that anyone fail to put into practice Gospel principles; and his speech – for one so good – had sometimes a severe frankness when he saw them overlooked. May we record here the tribute paid him at his funeral by Bishop Walsh of Portland.

“He was a noble son of Catholic France. Born in the Diocese of Lyon, he brought to us some of the great virtues of that French province. At Lyon, better than in any other large city of France, can be seen in the churches and amidst the people fervent signs of the faith. From the gospel seed exposed to the sun has grown a great tree whose branches extend to the most distant countries The Society of the Propagation of the Faith. Very near is beautiful Savoy, evangelized and made holy by St. Francis de Sales, who in the See of Annecy by his knowledge and virtue revealed and personified ‘the strength of sweetness.’  Not far from Lyon lies the village of Ars whose pastor, not long ago, sanctified all the surrounding countryside by the humility and simplicity which glowed from his person as well as from his house and his little church.

“In the course of a pilgrimage which I made to these three places five years ago, and seeing how much these virtues showed themselves there to the eyes of a traveler who was only passing through, I said to myself that of all the priests who have come from France, the one who seemed to me to best personify these sublime gifts and who had brought them as a precious heritage to our country was Father Chapon, who had received his life and his education near these blest places. That thought comes back to me today with much force, and it gives me a still more vivid idea of where his deep faith, his sweetness, wherein lay the force, the humility, and the simplicity of his character and his manner.