Joseph Passerat

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Joseph Passerat was a French Redemptorist priest and transalpine vicar general who established communities across Europe and helped extend the congregation to North America.

Joseph-Amand Passerat (born 30 April 1772, at Joinville, France; died 30 October 1858 in Tournai, Belgium) was a French Redemptorist. He was declared Servant of God in 1893 and confirmed as a Venerable in 1980.[3]

Life

Origins and formation

Joseph-Amand Passerat was born at Joinville in Champagne on 30 April 1772 and began preparation for priesthood as revolutionary upheaval dismantled French ecclesiastical institutions. Conscription, refusal to subordinate conscience to the new political order, exile, and movement through German-speaking lands made his formation unusually unstable. He studied where circumstances allowed and eventually encountered Clement Mary Hofbauer and the Redemptorists at Warsaw. Passerat entered the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, made profession, and was ordained priest in 1797. The institute itself was then divided by geography, politics, and uncertain communications with its Italian government. He learned mission, formation, and common life under Hofbauer while communities faced expulsions and police suspicion. Those conditions prepared a superior able to preserve identity without treating one national expression as the whole congregation. His middle name appears as Amand or Armand in sources, and Giuseppe in Italian cause material; these variants refer to the same French Redemptorist.

Vocation and service

After Hofbauer's death in 1820, Passerat became vicar general of the Redemptorists beyond the Alps and established his center at Maria am Gestade in Vienna. For nearly three decades he directed formation, preached, guided religious, and opened or stabilized houses across Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, and the United States. The Redemptorist generalate records approximately forty foundations under his direction. He also served Redemptoristine communities and emphasized interior prayer alongside missionary activity. Government suppression during the revolutions of 1848 drove the congregation from Austria; Passerat resigned and withdrew first to Bruges and then Tournai. He died there on 30 October 1858, and his remains were later placed at Bischenberg in Alsace. Administrative expansion was never his individual achievement alone: local bishops, benefactors, confreres, women religious, and emerging American communities made the transalpine growth possible, while his task was to give that network coherence and spiritual discipline.[1]

Passerat was driven from the seminary, imprisoned, and forced to serve in Napoleon's army from 1788 to 1792. Owing to his height he was made drum-major, and later quarter-master. At the first opportunity he left the service and entered the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in Warsaw.[4]

Clement Hofbauer trained him for the religious life and the priesthood, and he in turn trained newcomers. Later with great difficulty owing to the circumstances of the times he established houses outside of Poland.[5]

After the death of Hofbauer, Passerat succeeded him as vicar-general over all the transalpine communities (that is, the communities outside of Italy, where the Congregation originated). While thus engaged (1820–48) he founded houses in Bavaria, Prussia, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Holland, and England. Passerat sent the first six Redemptorists to the U.S. in 1832.[6] Difficulties were many in the United States, and in Europe the danger of suppression was imminent. He used to say: "Console yourselves, we are seed, be it that we are reduced to ten, these like grains of corn reduced to dust under the earth will one day give a rich harvest".[5]

On 6 April 1848, he was driven out of Vienna with his community. After much hardship he reached Belgium. He resigned his office and became director of the Redemptoristines in Bruges. In 1850 he joined the convent of redemptorists in Tournai, where he died in 1858.

The process for his beatification began in 1892.[7] His spiritual writings were approved by theologians on 9 August 1896, and his cause was formally opened on 13 May 1901, granting him the title of Servant of God.[8] In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable.

Christian witness

Passerat joined contemplative depth to governance on a continental scale. He inherited an institute whose Italian and transalpine branches could barely communicate and helped prepare the eventual international unity and missionary reach of the Redemptorists. Formation, correspondence, appointments, financial prudence, and patient negotiation became works of charity because they enabled preaching and sacramental ministry among ordinary people. His life also shows that institutional success is not the same as holiness: the cause examined virtues within decisions, relationships, prayer, and suffering, rather than counting forty houses as proof. Expansion in nineteenth-century Europe and North America occurred amid confessional competition, migration, and state regulation. It should not be narrated as simple conquest. Local Catholics received and reshaped Redemptorist mission, while resistance sometimes reflected real political fears. Passerat's enduring lesson is fidelity under displacement and willingness to relinquish office when age and revolution altered what he could responsibly carry.

Early biographies were written within a congregation grateful for survival and growth and therefore tend toward filial praise. Modern history must test anecdotes, foundation counts, and attributions against letters and local archives. The 1980 recognition of heroic virtues does not guarantee that every personnel decision was wise, every conflict one-sided, or every spiritual maxim transcribed exactly. Nor does the title successor of Hofbauer mean that Passerat became superior general of the entire congregation; he served as vicar general for the transalpine branch within a complicated structure. Accuracy on that point prevents institutional history from becoming hagiographic shorthand. Venerability affirms heroic Christian virtue after canonical examination, but it leaves the cause short of beatification and does not validate alleged miracles. Private affection for a founder-like superior remains subordinate to the Church's further judgment.

Ecclesial recognition

Cause and present status

The Redemptorists initiated Passerat's beatification cause in 1901 and preserved his correspondence, government records, community testimony, and reputation for holiness across several countries. After the long historical process, Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable in 1980 by recognition of heroic virtues. The Redemptorist generalate's current cause material continues to list Joseph Passerat among the Venerables for whom a miracle is required before beatification, and the order publicly commemorated him under that title in 2021. His exact status on 30 August 2026 is Venerable; no beatification or canonization has occurred. Because available official summaries generally give the year rather than a promulgation day, the status plate states the documented year without inventing precision. C.Ss.R. is the established postnominal of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer and distinguishes his institute from the many communities he advised.[2]

Liturgical and devotional scope

The recognition of heroic virtues does not authorize public liturgical cult. Joseph Passerat may be invoked privately and his cause promoted, but he has no approved feast, Mass, Office, or public veneration proper to a Blessed or Saint. Redemptorist commemorations must remain non-liturgical or use the ordinary liturgy for the day unless competent authority provides otherwise; an internal anniversary cannot create a proper calendar celebration. His remains at Bischenberg and objects associated with Maria am Gestade are subject to ecclesiastical custody and should not be represented as relics exposed for public cult. A favor attributed to his intercession must undergo full diocesan, medical, theological, and papal examination before it can support beatification. Authentic remembrance studies his prayer and governance, prays for the cause, and supports missionary formation without anticipating a judgment that the Holy See has not made.

Literature

  • Achille Desurmont, Joseph Passerat et sous sa conduite les Redemptoristes pendant les guerres de l'Empire, Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1893.
  • H. Giourille, Un grand serviteur de Dieu, Le Rev. Père Joseph Passerat, Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1893.
  • John Magnier, Venerable Joseph Passerat, The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 11, New York, 1911.
  • H. Giourille, Vie du Vénérable père Joseph Paaserat, Paris, Pierre Téqui, 1924.
  • Madeleine Gautron, L’âme du Père Passerat, 1929.
  • Pierre Debongnie, Joseph-Amand Passerat, supérieur des Rédemptoristes transalpins 1772-1858: un juste proscrit, Brugge, DDB, 1938.
  • R. P. Pelissier, Le Père Passerat, Un sillage de feu, Apôtre du Foyer, 1949.

References

  1. 1.Redemptorist commemoration of Venerable Joseph Passerat — Official Redemptorist generalate account documenting Passerat's 1820–1848 transalpine vicariate, European and American foundations, expulsion, death, 1901 cause, and 1980 declaration as Venerable.
  2. 2.Office of the Redemptorist Postulator General — Official postulator directory listing Giuseppe Amand Passerat as a professed Redemptorist priest and Venerable whose cause requires a miracle for beatification.
  3. 3."Sant'Alfonso e dintorni » Blog Archiv » Giuseppe Amando Passerat". www.santalfonsoedintorni.it. 10 September 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  4. 4.Gwynn, A., Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 69, 1929, pp. 144–146. JSTOR
  5. 5.[5.2]Magnier, John. "Venerable Joseph Passerat." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 28 December 2019
  6. 6."Venerable Joseph Passerat ", The Redemptorists of the London Province, July 29, 2010
  7. 7.“Venerable Joseph Passerat”. New Catholic Dictionary. CatholicSaints.Info. 14 August 2018
  8. 8.Index ac status causarum beatificationis servorum dei et canonizationis beatorum (in Latin). Typis polyglottis vaticanis. January 1953. p. 123.