Frain, Celestin Marie Charles Francois Xavier

Submitted by Mike Miller

The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Celestin Marie Charles Francois Xavier Frain, honorary chaplain of his Holiness Pius IX. and his Holiness Leo XIII., canon of St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, and pastor of the church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the same city, was born at Miniac, in the diocese of Rennes, Brittany, France. He was educated in the college of St. Meen, and made his ecclesiastical studies partly in the great Seminary of Rennes, where he received the tonsure and the minor orders from Monsignor Godfroy St. Marc, the right reverend bishop of Rennes, and partly in Marseilles, where he went to prepare himself for the ministry in the foreign missions, anxious to devote his life to the conversion of the poor infidels. There he was ordained sub-deacon and deacon by the Right Reverend Bishop of Marseilles, Monsignor Eugene De Mazenod. On June 8, 1856, in the old Cathedral of St. Martin, he was ordained a priest by the same holy bishop. For a few months after his ordination, he acted as one of the chaplains of the famous sanctuary of Our Lady of Lagarde in the city of Marseilles. In May, 1857, Rev. Father C. M. Frain left France and crossed the Atlantic to British America, where he spent several years as missionary amongst the North American Indians, in the Hudson Bay territory. In 1863, obliged to leave, those so very arduous missions of the extreme north of British America, on account of ill health, he returned to France. He then went to Rome, and having received the blessing of his Holiness Pius IX., and his health being much improved after a few months of rest in his family and amongst his good friends of La Belle France, he again crossed the Atlantic, landed at New York on November 6, 1885, and from that time until now he has been very actively engaged in the holy ministry of the missionary priests in the United States. He first went to Detroit, Mich., where, at the urgent solicitation of Rt. Rev. Bishop Lefevre, he accepted the charge of pastor of the church of Redford, in December, 1885. In December, 1866, he was transferred from Redford to the more important parish of St. Mary, in Marshall, and from Marshall he had to attend to the church of Battle Creek, of Albion and of Charlotte. It was too much work for the feeble health of Father Frain. Also in December, 1868, he had to give up his pastorate of Marshall, and by the order of the doctor to leave Michigan and go to a milder climate. He then came to New Orleans, where, for over twenty years, he has accomplished with great zeal his duty in the different positions assigned to him. He was for about three years assistant priest at the Cathedral, and, later, in March, 1874, was appointed pastor of the St. Vincent de Paul church, in the city. In April, 1875, he became the private secretary to his Grace Monsignor N. J. Perche' and went to Rome with him. He remained two years in Europe with the archbishop, and from December, 1876, until April, 1881, notwithstanding being the private secretary of the archbishop, he was very often called to give mission in the archdiocese of New Orleans, and never, when possible, did he refuse such a call. In April, 1881, Monsignoir N. J. Perche', having no other priest to send as pastor to the church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, he appointed his private secretary to take charge of that poor and difficult parish. There we can find him to-day devoting himself entirely to the salvation of his parishioners, white or colored. May God bless him! His Holiness Pius IX. honored Rev. Father C. M. Frain with the title of Mansignor and the dignity of his honorary chaplain in October, 1875. Leo XIII. conferred on him the same dignity in 1878.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 1), pp. 406-407. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.