page_title: Simon Bruté
section_title: Bishop
hierarchical_section_title: Simon Bruté / Bishop
caption_attribution_description: English: Simon William Gabriel Brute from History of the Diocese of Vincennes, 1883
context_page_description: Simon William Gabriel Bruté de Rémur was a French missionary in the United States and the first bishop of the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana. President John Quincy Adams called Bruté "the most learned man of his day in America."
context_section_description: French missionaries sent from Quebec had served Native Americans and fur traders throughout the region and particularly at Vincennes (founded 1732), including assisting George Rogers Clark during the American Revolution. Afterwards, the area came under the jurisdiction of the diocese of Baltimore until the creation of the diocese of Bardstown. Missionaries such as Bruté and the more experienced Fr. Stephen Badin traveled by horse, foot, flatboat and canoe between widely scattered settlements. The neighboring Indians, called Bruté chief of the black robes and man of the true prayer.
  American colonists had begun streaming over the Appalachian Mountains, joined by emigrants (including Catholic emigrants from France and Germany). Vincennes had been founded where the historic Buffalo Trace crossed the Wabash River and its subsidiary. Thousands emigrated from the East as well as South to settle central Indiana. This caused conflict with the Native Americans, who had lost the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. The sheer numbers of emigrants, many Catholic, helped qualify Indiana for admission as a separate state, with Vincennes as its first capital, although it soon moved north, ultimately to Indianapolis on the National Road. The state line at the Wabash River little affected missionaries such as Bruté and Badin. Bardstown, however, was across the falls of the Ohio River, and Kentucky, unlike Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, was a slave state, and slavery had become a major spiritual as well as economic issue in the new nation.
  Rome split the diocese of Bardstown and created the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana in 1834, the year after the Treaty of Tippecanoe caused many Potawatomi to relocate across the Mississippi River, although others remained, particularly the assimilated metis. In 1834, despite his protest of ill health, melancholy, and some difficulty to easily converse in English ("I lose the half of it and I am not understood"), Bruté accepted the position of Bishop of Vincennes and crossed the Appalachian mountains to serve in the newly created diocese, which encompassed all of modern-day Indiana plus eastern Illinois. He became the new diocese's first bishop and was consecrated in the same year at the Cathedral of St. Louis. On March 7, 1835 Bruté became a U.S. citizen, partly because of the requirements for land ownership.
  The entire diocese had but three priests, one of whom was on loan for a year from the Diocese of St. Louis. The new bishop soon traveled to France to recruit priests and seek funds, with which he built St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, a library, seminary and parochial schools. In addition to his episcopal duties and pastoral work, Bruté taught theology in his seminary and also in one of his academies. His correspondence with leaders of the church in America and with many in France was extensive. He maintained a correspondence with Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais, whom he tried to reconcile with the Church both by his letters from this country, as well as by conferring with him personally during one of his visits to France, but without success. In 1836 Bruté returned from a trip to France with several clerical recruits, among them Benjamin Petit, who became a missionary to the Potawatomi. Bruté also drafted old acquaintances such as Anthony Deydier who arrived on the same boat as Bruté in 1810.
  By the time bishop Bruté died, the number of clergymen had grown. Bruté knew, however, that much work remained to be done. For a number of years before his death he had sought a coadjutor bishop, including Nicholas Petit S.J. but the Superior of the Society of Jesus refused to allow Petit to be named. On May 17, 1839, Célestine Guynemer de la Hailandière was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Vincennes.
  Bruté knew the great assistance a religious order could provide, having worked with Mother Seton and her Sisters of Charity during the founding and early years of Mount Saint Mary's College in Emmitsburg. Bruté sent Hailandière as a representative to their native France in search of a religious congregation to co
caption: Simon William Gabriel Brute from History of the Diocese of Vincennes, 1883
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