Cahagne, Louis-Taurin (Bishop)

Biography

1826: Born in Heubécourt (Eure)

1856 (?): Professed Priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin

1866: Cahagne was appointed supervisor of the newly established St. Michael’s College of Galla Boys in Marseille

  • The College was directed by Fr. Emmanuel de Montagnac and closed in June 1870.
  • View the Regulations of the College (written by Bishop Massaja)

1867: Cahagne began missionary work in Ethiopia under Bishop Gugliemo Massaja.

1868: Cahagne founded the Capuchin Catholic mission station in Finfinne among the Gullale Oromo. O’Mahoney and W. Smidt state (“Finfinnee,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 2, p. 544-45):

  • “In 1868 Mәnelәk […] suggested to the Capuchin Fr. Taurin de Cahagne that he should open a mission at F[infinnee] among the Gullallee. [… p. 545]. With the permission of the Oromo people, who owned the land, he built a Catholic church that was dedicated to Mary and consecrated on 25 July 1869. In a ‘ritual of adoption’, he was also integrated into the local Gullallee group, led by Abbaa Obboo (Foucher 1986). Missionary education was started; later even some former students of the Collège des Galla in Marseille arrived in the 1870s [together with Fr. Louis de Gonzague…]. Oromo texts, written by Taurin, were used in church services, among them the canticle Maariyaam kan Birbirsaa (Foucher 1986)” [some italics added].

1875: Ordained Titular Bishop of Adramyttium.

  • Cahagne was known locally as Abuna Jacobi. He is not to be confused with Gioustino de Jacobis, the titular Bishop of Nilopolis who died in 1860.

1879: The Catholic missionaries were expelled by the order of Emperor Yohannes IV. Cahagne then published Oromo religious books in France.

1881 to 1899: Cahagne headed the Catholic mission in Harar. Cahagne, who had been titular Bishop of Adramittium since 1875, succeeded Massaja as the governor of the Apostolic Vicariate of Galla in 1880.

1899: Passed away in Carcassonne (Aude)

Hymns

? Lyrics of the canticle Maariyaam kan Birbirsaa ?

Picture

Bishop Louis-Taurin Cahagne
(adapted from Bernoville, Monseigneur Jarosseau,
after p. 48)

Further reading

» View bibliography