From Berlin to Bagdad and BabylonZahm, J. A. (John Augustine)
HistoryChristian
From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon
Zahm, J. A. (John Augustine)
Middle East -- Civilization; Middle East -- Description and travel
A little more than a quarter of a century after this tragic occurrence,
was created the Latin bishopric of Bagdad, usually known as the See
of Babylon. This was due to the progress which the Church had made
in Persia--a progress that was the result of the fruitful missionary
labors in that land of Carmelites, Jesuits, and Dominicans and to
the protection and liberty which had been accorded them by the wise
and enlightened Shah, Abbas the Great. Recognizing the necessity of
a bishop as head of the Persian mission, Abbas, in 1830, sent Father
Thaddée, a Carmelite, to Rome, to request the Holy Father to create a
Latin bishopric in Ispahan, his capital, with a permanent coadjutorship
which should guarantee the new episcopate from too long vacancies. As a
result of the Persian monarch’s interest in the Church, Father Thaddée
was promoted to the new See of Ispahan. He received as coadjutor Father
Perez, likewise a Carmelite, who was given the specially created title
of Bishop of Babylonia, which at that time was a part of the Persian
Empire.
In the meantime, a pious lady of Meaux, France--Marie Ricouard--put at
the disposition of the Holy See six thousand Spanish doubloons for the
creation and endowment of a bishopric in _partibus infidelibus_,
on the double condition that to the donor should be reserved the
presentation of the first titular and that the following bishops should
always be of French nationality.
Pope Urban VIII by his bull, _Super Universas_, decreed in June
1838, that the sum named should be appropriated to the See of “Babylon
or Bagdad,” with the formal stipulation that all future incumbents
of this bishopric should be obliged to reside there personally under
pain of forfeiting all right to the fruits of the Ricouard foundation.
At the same time the Sovereign Pontiff named as the first bishop
of the new see Father Bernard de Sainte-Thérèse, of Paris, who had
been proposed by the donor of the fund mentioned, and ordained that
thenceforth no one should be promoted to this see unless he had been
born in France. This wish of the Pope and of the pious donor has thus
far never been transgressed, and there is no reason to doubt that it
will continue to assure to France the honor of seeing one of her sons
occupy the See of Bagdad.[420]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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