Donnet, Cardinal F. F. Auguste

Archbishop of Bordeaux from 1837 to 1882

Ferdinand François Auguste Donnet was born at Bourg-Argental (Loire) on November 16, 1795. He was a student at Saint Irenaeus seminary in Lyon (1813-1816), then a professor of the humanities at the college of Belley (1816-1819). He was ordained to the priesthood at Grenoble in the month of March of 1819. He was then professor, assistant priest and mission preacher in Lyon and in Tours. On May 31, 1835, he was consecrated bishop in Paris by Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson and appointed coadjutor bishop of Nancy. He was canonically established as bishop of Bordeaux on May 19, 1837. He quickly acquired and maintained for a period of forty years a well deserved reputation for being a conciliatory and capable churchman. In the consistory of March 15, 1862, Pius IX created him cardinal. He encouraged perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, confraternities, pious works, retreats, parish missions and pilgrimages.

Bishop de Mazenod wrote the archbishop about fifteen letters. They dealt with the establishing of the Oblates in Bordeaux and the affiliation of the Association of the Holy Family. Bishop de Mazenod and Bishop Donnet traveled together to Algiers in October-November of 1842 and the bishop of Marseilles made two visits to Bordeaux in 1850 and 1857. In a December 25, 1847, letter to Father Léonard Baveux, he stated that he “knew especially well” Bishop Donnet.

After a pastoral retreat preached in Bordeaux in 1851 by Father Vincens, Bishop Donnet called the Oblates to come into his diocese to preach missions. In 1853, he also entrusted to their care the parish and the shrine of Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs in Talence, in the suburbs of Bordeaux. Just like the bishop of Marseilles, it was usual for him to go to close the missions preached by Oblates and he greatly appreciated their work. See below the article, Notre-Dame de Talence.

In 1857, Abbé Bienvenu de Noailles approached Bishop de Mazenod suggesting an affiliation between the Oblates and the Association of the Holy Family. Cardinal Donnet gave his approval and encouraged this endeavor. On February 14, 1861, Bishop de Mazenod who was ill, wrote to Father Bellon, his delegate to the Holy Family, that “we owe a special gratitude and complete deference to the Eminent Cardinal in whose diocese the Holy Family has its origins.” (Oblate Writings I, vol. 12, no. 1465, p. 200) The cardinal died at Bordeaux on December 23, 1882.

Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i.