Benedict Joseph Flaget
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The Right Reverend Benedict Joseph Flaget, S.S. |
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| Bishop of Louisville | |
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| Church | Roman Catholic Church |
| See | Diocese of Louisville |
| In office | February 13, 1841—February 11, 1850 |
| Predecessor | . |
| Successor | Martin John Spalding |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | June 1, 1788 |
| Consecration | November 4, 1810 by Archbishop John Carroll |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
November 7, 1763 Contournat, Saint-Julien-de-Coppel, Auvergne, Kingdom of France |
| Died | February 11, 1850 (aged 86) Louisville, Kentucky, United States |
| Previous post | Bishop of Bardstown (April 8, 1808-May 7, 1832) & (March 17, 1833-February 13, 1841) |
The Right Reverend Benedict Joseph Flaget, S.S., (November 7, 1763 – February 11, 1850) was a French-born Catholic bishop in the United States. He served as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bardstown between 1808 and 1839, then as Bishop of the Diocese of Louisville between 1839 and 1850 when the see was transferred to Louisville in 1839.
Flaget was born on November 7, 1763 in Contournat, now part of the commune of Saint-Julien-de-Coppel, in the ancient Province of Auvergne in the center of the Kingdom of France. Orphaned at an early age, he and his siblings were raised by his maternal aunt, assisted by his paternal uncle, a canon at the collegiate church of Billom. At the age of 17 he entered the Society of Saint-Sulpice at Clermont-Ferrand. He was ordained a priest on June 1, 1788. Flaget then taught theology for two years at the University of Nantes, and soon held the same post at the seminary at Angers, until those institutions were closed by the French Revolution.
In January 1792 Flaget sailed from Bordeaux, accompanied by fellow Sulpician John Baptist Mary David, and the then secular deacon Stephen Badin whose studies for the priesthood had been interrupted by the Revolution. They reached Philadelphia on March 26 and proceeded to Baltimore, arriving on March 29. After only two months in America, the Bishop of Baltimore, John Carroll, sent him to Fort Vincennes in the Indiana Territory to staff the Church of St. Francis Xavier, founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1748, before their Suppression and expulsion by British forces in 1763. There was a considerable number of French settlers and the mission which had gone without the presence of a resident priest for decades.
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