Armand-François-Marie de Charbonnel

Armand-François-Marie de Charbonnel (1 December 1802 – 29 March 1891) was the Bishop of Toronto from 1847 to 1860 and the only French and non-English priest to hold the post.

Early years Born in Château du Flachat, France he was the second son of Jean-Baptiste de Charbonnel, Comte de Charbonnel, and Marie-Claudine de Pradier. At the age of ten, he was sent to a school operated by the Basilian Fathers in Annonay. Despite his father's wish that he enter the military, at seventeen, he went to the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice in Issy to study for the priesthood. He was ordained on 17 December 1825.

Charbonnel joined the Society of Saint-Sulpice in 1826 and became professor of dogmatic theology and scripture, teaching at Sulpician seminaries in Versailles, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons. Charbonnel's intervention during a workers' revolt in that Lyons in 1834 saved the city from destruction, but he would not accept the cross of the Legion of Honour for that action.

Charbonnel fell ill with typhus and was recalled to France to convalesce. When Charbonnel was fully recovered, he accepted the position of professor of Theology in the Seminary of Aix in Provence.

Bishop With the death of Bishop Michael Power of Toronto, the Canadian hierarchy asked the Propaganda in Rome to appoint Charbonnnel.

In 1856, he obtained the erection of the dioceses of London and Hamilton from that of Toronto. Charbonnel spent 13 months in Europe in 1857 to 1858 to preach on behalf of the Propagation of the Faith.

Return to France and death

Carbonnel resigned on 26 April 1860 to return to France and enter the Capuchins, who sent him to the novitiate in Rieti. On 1 October 1869, he was made Titular Bishop of Sozopolis in Haemimonto and participated in the Vatican Council of 1869-1870. Charbonnel lived in Lyon, serving as an auxiliary to the archbishop of the city from 1869 to 1880. Crest in the diocese of Valencia, department of Drôme, In December 1883, he retired to the Capuchin friary in Crest, Drôme, where he died on 29 March 1891. Charbonnel was buried at the friary.