22 Facts About Richard Challoner

Richard Challoner was an English Catholic prelate who served as Vicar Apostolic of the London District during the greater part of the 18th century, and as Titular Bishop of Doberus.

Richard 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.

Richard 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.

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

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

Richard 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.

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

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

In 1738 the president of Douai College, Robert Witham, died, and efforts were made by the superiors of the college to have Richard Challoner appointed as his successor.

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

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

Richard 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".

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

Richard 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.

Richard 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 Richard 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.

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

In 1753 Pope Benedict XIV put an end to the long disputes that had been carried on between the secular clergy and the regular clergy, in the last stages of which Richard Challoner took a leading part.

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

Richard 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.

One of these, John Payne, known as the "Protestant Carpenter", indicted Richard Challoner, but was compelled to drop the proceedings when some documents he had forged fell into the hands of the bishop's lawyers.

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