20 Facts About Bishop Challoner

Richard Challoner was an English Roman Catholic bishop, a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the 18th century.

Bishop Challoner was to spend the next twenty-five years there, first as student, then as professor, and as vice-president of the university of Douai.

Bishop Challoner graduated with a bachelor's degree in divinity from the University of Douai in 1719, and was appointed professor of philosophy, a post which he held for eight years.

Bishop Challoner was not considered an original thinker, but his gift lay in enforcing the spiritual reality of the doctrines he was expounding.

Bishop Challoner has been described as being gentle, cheerful, generous to the poor, and able to instill confidence in others.

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Bishop Challoner avoided the houses of the rich, preferred to live and work among the poor of London, and in his spare hours gave himself to study and writing, which ultimately enabled him to produce several works of instruction and controversy.

Bishop Challoner's first published work, a little book of meditations under the quaint title of Think Well On't dated from 1728.

Bishop Challoner was the author over the years of numerous controversial and devotional works, which have been frequently reprinted and translated into various languages.

Bishop Challoner's flock included the old, noble Catholic families in the countryside and recently arrived indigent Irish workers.

Bishop Challoner founded a school for poor girls at Brook Green, Hammersmith, besides assisting the already existing convent school there.

Bishop Challoner instituted conferences among the London clergy, and he was instrumental in founding the "Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm Poor".

Bishop Challoner devoted much energy and time to revising the English Catholic Bible.

Bishop Challoner did not set out to make a new translation; his aim was to remove antiquated words and expressions so that the Bible would be more readable and understandable by ordinary folk.

Bishop Challoner is believed to have had the assistance of Robert Pinkard, the London agent for Douay College, in preparing the 1749 and 1750 revisions.

In 1753 Bishop Challoner brought out another of his best-known works, the Meditations for every Day of the Year, a book which has passed through numerous editions and been translated into French and Italian.

Bishop Challoner's goal was to make the classics of Catholic Spirituality accessible to Catholics, in English.

In 1758 Bishop Petre died, and Challoner, as his coadjutor, succeeded him at once as Vicar Apostolic of the London District.

Bishop Challoner was nearly seventy years old, and was so ill that he was forced immediately to apply for a coadjutor in his turn.

Bishop Challoner continued to write, and almost every year published a new book, but they were more usually translations or abstracts, such as The Historical Part of the Old and New Testament.

Bishop Challoner was buried at Milton, Berkshire in the family vault of his friend Bryant Barrett in the Church of England parish church.