Stephen Theodore Badin, Kentucky’s earliest Catholic bard, was born in Orleans, France, in 1768. Though very poor, he received classical and theological training in Paris and Tours, and in 1792, he emigrated to America. In the following year, Badin was ordained a priest in Baltimore. He was subsequently appointed to do missionary work in Kentucky, which was then in the old Baltimore diocese, and he made his home at Georgetown, Kentucky. For the next several years, Badin rode more than one hundred thousand miles on horseback to meet all his appointments. In 1797, Badin was made vicar-general, and the large Catholic emigrations from Maryland to Kentucky about this time greatly increased his labors. His Principles of Catholics (1805) was the first Catholic book published in the West.
When Badin and Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget of the Bardstown diocese misunderstood the settlement of titles to certain church properties that Badin had acquired, rather than have an acrimonious argument with the Bishop, Badin left Kentucky in 1819. He spent the next nine years traveling in Europe. From 1830 to 1836, he worked among the Pottawatomie Indians in Indiana and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853.
Source: Bibliography. Sketches of Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky, by M. J. Spalding (Louisville, 1846); The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky, by B. J. Webb (Louisville, 1884).
JOIN below and enjoy a BIG DISCOUNT!!
https://georgiapioneers.com/6mosubscription.html
