Hyacinthe
PERE (yä-sant'), a French clergyman, the former monastic. name of CHARLES LOYSON; born in Orleans, March 10, 1827. He studied at St. Sulpice, and in 1851 becoming priest, taught philosophy and theology at Avignon and Nantes. Subsequently entering the order of the Carmelites, he became known as a powerful preacher, and gathered crowded and enthusiastic audiences of all ranks of society to the Madeleine and Notre Dame in Paris. Almost as remarkable as his eloquence was the boldness with which he denounced existing abuses in the Church; and Archbishop Darboy defended him against the accusations of the Jesuits till in 1869 the general of his order imposed silence on him. Hyacinthe replied by a letter in which he called for a thorough reform of the Church, and was excommunicated Relieved from monastic vows by the Pope, he became a secular priest under the name of the Abbé Loyson. He proan tested vigorously against the infallibility dogma. In 1872 he married American lady. In 1873 he was chosen curé of a congregation of Liberal Catholics at Geneva. He published sermons and lectures, and in 1879 established a "Gallican" congregation in Paris, which in 1884 attached itself to the Old Catholic Church in Holland. In 1900 he ministered to Old Catholics in Switzerland. His publications include: "Catholic Reform" (1892); "My Testament" (1893); "Christianity and Islamism" (1895). He died in 1912.