Richard Challoner

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Richard Challoner (1691-1781), was an English Roman Catholic bishop, a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the eighteenth century.

He was born in fiercely Protestant Lewes, Sussex, England on September 29, 1691. His father, also Richard Challoner, was married by licence granted on January 17 1690/1 to his wife Grace Willard at Ringmer, Sussex on February 10. After the death of his father, who was a Presbyterian winecooper (i.e. he made wine-barrels), his mother, now reduced to poverty, became housekeeper to the Catholic Gage family, at Firle in Sussex. It is not known for sure whether she was originally a Roman Catholic, or whether she subsequently became one under the influence of Roman Catholic surroundings. Most probably she was a lapsed Roman Catholic. In any case, thus it came about that Richard was brought up as a Catholic, though he was not received into the Roman Catholic Church till he was about thirteen years old. This was at Warkworth, Northamptonshire, the seat of another well-known Roman Catholic family, that of George Holman, whose wife, Lady Anastasia Holman, was a daughter of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, a Roman Catholic unjustly condemned and beheaded in the Titus Oates rumpus of 1678. In this house the chaplain was the Rev. John Gother, a celebrated controversialist. In 1705 young Richard was sent to the English College at Douai on a sort of scholarship, entering the English College on July 29.

He was to spend the next twenty-five years there, first as student, then as professor, and as vice-president. At the age of twenty-one he was chosen to teach the classes of rhetoric and poetry, which were the two senior classes in "humanities". He graduated Bachelor in Divinity of the University of Douai in 1719, and was appointed professor of philosophy, a post which he held for eight years. At this period, though it was not really necessary to have aliases, he was known by his mother's surname of Willard. His nickname was Book. Ordained priest at Tournai on March 28, 1716, in 1720 he was chosen by the president, Robert Witham, to be his vice-president, an office which involved the supervision of both professors and students. At the same time he was appointed professor of theology and prefect of studies, so that he had the direction of the whole course of studies. Though in 1727 he defended his public thesis and obtained the degree of Doctor in Divinity, Challoner's success as a teacher was probably due rather to his untiring industry and devotion to this work than to any extraordinary mental gifts, for he was never an original thinker, but his gift lay in enforcing the spiritual reality of the doctrines he was expounding.

Having in 1708 taken the college oath, binding himself to return to England, when required, to labour on the mission, in 1730 he felt the call and was given permission to embark for England on August 18, being stationed in London. There he threw himself with zeal into the laborious work of the ministry. Though the penal laws were no longer enforced with extreme severity, the life of the Roman Catholic priest was still a hard one. Disguised as a layman, Challoner ministered to the small number of Roman Catholics, celebrating Mass secretly in obscure ale-houses, cockpits, and wherever small gatherings could assemble without exciting remark. He was an untiring worker, and in the poorest quarters of the town and in the prisons, he sought out souls to save. In his spare time he gave himself to study and writing, and was thus able to produce several works of instruction and controversy.

His first published work, a little book of meditations under the quaint title of Think Well On't dated from 1728. The controversial treatises which he published in rapid succession from London attracted much attention, particularly his Catholic Christian Instructed (1737), which was prefaced by a witty reply to Dr Conyers Middleton's Letters from Rome, showing an Exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism. Bishop Challoner was the author over the years of numerous controversial and devotional works, which have been frequently reprinted and translated into various languages.

In 1740 he brought out a new prayer book for the laity, the Garden of the Soul, which until the mid 20th century remained the favourite work of devotion, though the many editions that have since appeared have been so altered that little of the original work remains. Of his historical works the most valuable is one which was intended to be a Catholic antidote to John Foxe's well-known martyrology, Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It is entitled Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion, from the year 1577 till the end of the reign of Charles II (2 vols. 1741, frequently reprinted). This work, laboriously compiled from original records, was for long the chief means of perpetuating the tradition of the English martyrs and remains the standard work on the subject. In 1745 he produced anonymously his longest and most learned book, Britannia Sancta, containing the lives of the British, English, Scottish, and Irish saints, an interesting work of hagiography which was superseded by that of Alban Butler and then by more recent publications.

Another work to which he devoted much energy and time was revision of the English Catholic Bible. He had long perceived a need to update the language of the Douay Rheims Bible that had appeared over the years 1582-1610. While still at Douay, he was one of the approving prelates for a revision of the Rheims New Testament published in 1730 by the college President, Robert Witham (infra). After returning to England, he and Rev. Francis Blyth (d. 1772) published in 1738 another revision of Rheims in an attractive large folio edition. His more important work would appear over the years 1749 through 1752. An edition of the New Testament appeared in 1749, another, together with the first edition of the Old Testament, in 1750. Between the two New Testaments there are but few differences, but the next edition, published in 1752, had important changes both in text and notes, the variations numbering over two thousand. All revisions attributed to Challoner were published anonymously. It is unclear to what extent he was personally involved in, or even approved of, the various changes. (Curiously, a book he published in 1762, Morality of the Bible [infra], quotes Scriptural citations from the 1749 and 1752 revisions in different places.) Challoner is believed to have had the assistance of Robert Pinkard (alias Typper)(d. 1766), the London agent for Douay College, in preparing the 1749 and 1750 revisions. The chief points to note in these revisions are the elimination of the obscure and literal translations from the Latin in which the original version abounds, the alteration of obsolete terms and spelling, a closer approximation in some respects to the Anglican version, as, for instance, in the substitution of "The Lord" for "Our Lord", and finally the printing of the verses separately. For the next 200 years Challoner's revisions were the groundwork for nearly all English Catholic Bibles, including those published in America, beginning with a Philadelphia edition in 1790.

In 1753 Dr. Challoner brought out another of his best-known works, the popular Meditations for every Day of the Year, a book which has passed through numerous editions and been translated into French and Italian. Besides the works mentioned above, and a good number of tracts, other writings, whose titles convey the atmosphere of an era, include: Grounds of Catholic Doctrine (1732); Unerring Authority of the Catholic Church (1732); Short History of the Protestant Religion (1733); A Roman Catholick's Reasons why He cannot Conform (1734); The Touchstone of the New Religion (1734); The Young Gentleman Instructed in the Grounds of the Christian Religion (1735); A Specimen of the Spirit of the Dissenting Teachers (1736); The Catholic Christian Instructed (1737); translation of St. Augustine's Confessions (1739); The Ground of the Old Religion (1742); A Letter to a Friend concerning the Infallibility of the Church (1743); A Papist Misrepresented and Represented, abridged from Gother; Remarks on Two Letters against Popery (1751); Instructions for the Jubilee (1751); The Wonders of God in the Wilderness: Lives of the Fathers of the Desert (1755); The Life of St Teresa, abridged from Woodhead (1757); Manual of Prayers (1758); A Caveat against the Methodists (1760); The City of God of the New Testament (1760); The Morality of the Bible (1762); Devotion of Catholics to the Blessed Virgin (1764); Rules of Life for a Christian (1766).

In 1738, the president of Douai College, Robert Witham, died, and strenuous efforts were made by the superiors of the college to have Challoner appointed as his successor. But Bishop Benjamin Petre, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, who already had Challoner as his vicar general, opposed this on the ground that he desired to have him as his own coadjutor with right of succession. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide had apparently already arranged Challoner's appointment as president of Douai, but the Petre's representations prevailed, and papal Briefs were issued on September 12, 1739, appointing Challoner to the See of Debra in partibus. These Briefs, however, were not carried into effect, for the bishop-elect, endeavouring to escape the responsibility of the episocpate, raised the point that he had been born and brought up a Protestant. The delay so caused lasted a whole year, and it was not until November 24, 1740, that the new Briefs were issued. The consecration took place on January 29, 1741, in the private chapel at Hammersmith, London.

The new bishop's first work was a visitation of the district, the first methodical visitation of which there is any record since the creation of the vicariate in 1688. The district included ten counties, besides the Channel Islands and the British possessions in America--chiefly Maryland and Pennsylvania and some West Indian islands. The missions beyond the seas could not be visited at all, and even the home counties took nearly three years.

As an administrator he was always unfailing in supplying deficiencies in the face of extraordinary difficulties. He had already provided for his people a suitable prayer book and meditation book, as well as convenient editions of the Holy Scriptures, the "Imitation of Christ", and the catechism of Christian Doctrine. But, besides this literary work, he caused two schools for boys to be opened, one at Standon Lordship, later represented by St Edmund's College, Old Hall, and the other at Sedgley Park, in Staffordshire. He also founded a school for poor girls at Brook Green, Hammersmith, besides assisting the already existing convent school there. he also instituted conferences among the London clergy, and he was instrumental in founding the still-existing "Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm Poor".

His private life was marked by extraordinary mortification, while large charity passed through his hands. He had the gift of prayer in a marked degree.

As a bishop, Challoner usually resided in London, though on occasion, as during the No Popery riots of 1780, he was obliged to retire into the country. In fact Bishop Challoner's manifold activity is the more remarkable because his life was spent in hiding, owing to the state of the law, and often he had hurriedly to change his lodgings to escape the Protestant informers, who were anxious to earn the government reward of £100 for the conviction of a priest. One of these, John Payne, known as "The Protestant Carpenter", indicted Challoner, but was compelled to drop the proceedings, owing to some documents, which he had forged, falling into the hands of the bishop's lawyers. For some years he and the London Roman Catholic priests were continually harassed in this way. Finally the evil was remedied by the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, by which priests were no longer liable to imprisonment for life. This concession, slight as it was, speedily kindled a fierce blaze of bigotry, and two years later the Gordon Riots broke out. The chapels and houses of Roman Catholics were wrecked and plundered by frenzied mobs. From his hiding-place the bishop, now nearly ninety years of age, could hear the howls of the mob, who were searching for him with the intention of dragging him through the streets. They failed to find his refuge, and on the following day he escaped to Finchley, where he remained till the riots came to an end.

In 1753 Pope Benedict XIV put an end to the long disputes that had been carried on between the secular clergy and the regulars, in the last stages of which Bishop Challoner took a leading part. There were several points at issue, but the matter was brought to a head over the contention put forward by the regulars, that they did not need the approbation of the vicars Apostolic to hear confessions. The bishops opposed this and, after a struggle lasting for several years, obtained a final settlement of this and other questions, a settlement, in the main, satisfactory to the bishops. In 1758 Bishop Petre died, and Bishop Challoner, as his coadjutor, succeeded him at once as Vicar Apostolic of the London District. He was, however, nearly seventy years old, and was so ill that he was forced immediately to apply for a coadjutor in his turn. The Holy See appointed the Hon. and Rev. James Talbot to this office, and with the help of the younger prelate, whose assistance considerably lessened his labour, his health somewhat recovered. But from this time he lived almost entirely in London, the visitations being carried out by Dr. Talbot. He continued to write, and almost every year published a new book, but they were more usually translations or abstracts, such as The Historical Part of the Old and New Testament. One more work of original value remained, and that was his little British Martyrology published in 1761.

The aged Challoner never fully recovered from the shock of the Gordon Riots. Six months later he was seized with paralysis, and died after two days' illness, on the January 12, 1781, and was buried at Milton, Berkshire, in the vault of his friend Bryan Barrett at the parish church. In 1946 the body was reinterred in Westminster Cathedral. His name has ever been held in reverence by English Roman Catholics.

[edit] References

For a complete list of Challoner's writings see Joseph Gillow, Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, vol 1, pp. 452-458.

Richard Challoner

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