1855–1872

Fr Joseph Grégoire, apostle of Vadakkankulam

For some seventeen patient years the work was driven by Fr Joseph Grégoire SJ, the man who gave this community a church one historian called "probably without equal in the world." It is his Jesuit chronicler Auguste Jean, and he alone, who calls him "the apostle of Vadakenkoulam." The Jesuit lay-brother Joseph Bergenthal engineered its twenty-four self-supporting arches, turned in lime and palm-toddy mortar without cement, iron, or a single wooden beam to hold them.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 4 sources.
ARSI 1872p. 56
-58- ~. DlstrleCus Palameottensls. P. Paulus Rottari, Min., Proc., ( Conf. in t. , Cons. an. t, Mission. P. Felix Boyer, Adj. proc., Mis- } sion., Cons. a.n. L . . . . . . Palancottah. P. Dionysius Guchen, Prces. coll. cas., Cons. an. 9, Mission. . Satancoulam. P. .iosephus Grégoire, Prcef. spir., ( Di1·ect. schol., Mission., Cons. an. 1. . . . . • . • . . . V adakencoulam. \ P. Marianus Michel, Mission . . P. Víctor Besset, Mission. . . Kamanayakerpatty QOADJVTOBES. Josephus Bergenthal, Atdif. eccl.. . Vadakencoulam. Arthurus Everard, Cur. valet., Dir. schol. . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuticorin. P. Gulíelmus Pouget: P. Hippolytus Vales, Stud. ling. tamuld. P. Stephanus Laporte, P. Thomas Gallo, Extra missionem. PP. 56. - Schol. 10. - Coadj. 10. Univ. 75.
56

In English

"Fr Joseph Grégoire… Vadakencoulam. — COADJUTORS: Joseph Bergenthal, builder of the church… Vadakencoulam."

Catalogus Provinciae Tolosanae S.J., 1872Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome

Published before 1930. In the public domain, and reproduced here in full.

What this source establishes

The single best fact on this page, and it is documented in ROME: the Society's own 1872 catalogue lists Br Joseph Bergenthal as "Ædif. eccl." — builder of the church — at Vadakencoulam, in the very year it was blessed. He appears NOWHERE on the open web. He also sits under COADIVTORES with no "P." prefix, which confirms he was a lay brother, not a priest.