Cheverus, Jean Louis Anne Madeleine Lefebvre de

Cheverus, Jean Louis Anne Madeleine Lefebvre de zhäN lwē än mädəlĕnˈ ləfĕˈvrə də shəvrüsˈ [key], 1768–1836, French churchman, first Roman Catholic bishop of Boston (1810–23). He was ordained in France and had to flee (1792) during the French Revolutionary Wars. In England he lived by teaching until 1796, when he went to Boston. He worked all over New England and was known for his work with Native Americans in Maine. He was also highly esteemed as a physician. In 1810 he was consecrated bishop of Boston. At length his health began to fail, and he asked for transfer to France. Catholics and Protestants in the United States begged him to remain, but he accepted a transfer to the see of Montauban (1823). In 1826 he became archbishop of Bordeaux and in 1836 cardinal. He did much to extend the tolerance of Roman Catholicism in America.

See biography by A. M. Melville (1958).

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