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His Excellency, The Most Reverend Michael Portier | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Mobile | |
 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| See | Diocese of Mobile |
| In office | May 15, 1829 – May 14, 1859 |
| Successor | John Quinlan |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | May 16, 1818 |
| Consecration | August 26, 1825 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1795-09-07)September 7, 1795 Montbrison, France |
| Died | May 14, 1859(1859-05-14) (aged 63) Mobile,Alabama, United States |
| Signature |  |
| Styles of Michael Portier | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | His Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | not applicable |
Michael Portier (September 7, 1795,Montbrison, France – May 14, 1859,Mobile, Alabama) was anAmerican Catholic bishop who served as the firstBishop of Mobile from 1829 until his death in 1859.
Portier emigrated from France in 1817, and was ordained thereafter in the United States. He later founded many parishes and Catholic institutions inAlabama andFlorida, particularly inMobile. Among them wasProvidence Hospital. He also recruited religious orders of men and women to teach and care for parishioners. He is also one of several early American Catholic bishops to have owned slaves.
Michel Portier was born in Montbrison in the diocese of Lyon, France. He was a student at the seminary inLyon when recruited by BishopLouis William Valentine Dubourg for the American mission. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 22 in 1817 with the goal of becoming a priest. He sailed fromBordeaux with Dubourg and about thirty companions on the French ship of warCaravane and landed after sixty-five days atAnnapolis, Maryland on 4 September 1817. Upon arrival, they stayed for nearly two months under the hospitality ofCharles Carroll of Carrollton.[1]
After completing his studies atSt. Mary's Seminary, inBaltimore, Maryland, where he also studiedEnglish, he was ordained deacon. From there he proceeded toSt. Louis, where he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, by Dubourg, on May 16, 1818.Yellow fever outbreaks were not infrequent at the time, and he devoted himself to the sick and dying until he too fell ill. Upon his recovery, Dubourg called Portier to New Orleans, where he established a collegiate school in the former Ursuline convent in the French Quarter. During his time in New Orleans, Portier served as Vicar-General to Dubourg.[1]
Eight years later, on August 26, 1825, he was consecratedtitular Bishop of Oleno by BishopJoseph Rosati. He became the onlyVicar Apostolic of the new Vicariate of Alabama and the Floridas,[2] which included the Territory of Arkansas. At the time of his accession, Portier was the only clergyman in the vicariate and had practically threeparishes with churches:Mobile,St. Augustine, andPensacola. The first priest who came to his assistance was Edward T. Mayne, a student of Mt. St. Mary's College,Emmitsburg, Maryland, sent byBishop England of Charleston, to take charge of the deserted church of St. Augustine.[2]
His parishioners were Catholics who were descendants of colonial era peoples, including ethnic French, Spanish, German and African of former French and Spanish territories. Like several bishops of his era, Portier was a slaveowner.[3] Portier began his administration by riding through his vicariate, offering theEucharist, preaching, and administering theSacraments as he went.
Portier sailed for Europe in 1829 to recruit assistants, and returned with a few seminarians and a priest,Mathias Loras. On May 15, 1829, the vicariate was raised byPope Pius VIII to become the Diocese of Mobile,[4] and Bishop Portier was made its first bishop. His cathedral was a small church twenty feet wide by fifty feet deep, his residence a still smaller two-roomed frame structure. A new cathedral was begun in 1837, and on December 8, 1850, Portier consecrated theCathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Also in 1850, the eastern portion of Florida was detached from the Diocese of Mobile and annexed to the newly createdDiocese of Savannah, based in Georgia.[2]
In 1830, Portier establishedSpring Hill College, and namedMathias Loras its head. Loras served in that role until he was consecratedBishop of Dubuque, Iowa, on December 10, 1837, by Portier. Portier also consecratedJohn Stephen Bazin, another president of Spring Hill, and later the thirdBishop of Vincennes, Indiana on October 24, 1847.[5]
In 1833 Portier secured from theGeorgetown Visitation Monastery,Georgetown, Washington, D.C., a colony of nuns who established theConvent and Academy of the Visitation in Mobile. He brought theBrothers of the Sacred Heart from France about 1847, and theDaughters of Charity fromEmmitsburg, Maryland, to manage orphan asylums for boys and girls, respectively. One of his last acts was founding a hospital at Mobile, presently known asProvidence Hospital, administered by the Daughters of Charity.[5]
Portier died on May 14, 1859, aged 63. He is entombed in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile.[5]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Mobile".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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