Jean de Wachtendonck explained

Joannes Wachtendonck
Bishop of Namur
Province:Cambrai
Diocese:Namur
Predecessor:Engelbert Des Bois
Successor:Ignace Schetz de Grobbendonk
Consecration:13 December 1654
Other Post:Archbishop of Mechelen (briefly in 1668)
Birth Date:1592
Birth Place:Mechelen
Death Date:25 June 1668
Death Place:Brussels
Religion:Roman Catholic
Alma Mater:Leuven University
Motto:La gloire suit la vertue

Jean de Wachtendonck, Latinized Joannes (1592–1668) was the eighth bishop of Namur, in the Spanish Netherlands (now in Belgium).

Life

Wachtendonck was born in Mechelen. He studied at Leuven University and graduated Licentiate of Theology in 1616. He became a canon of St Rumbold's Cathedral, an ecclesiastical councillor of the Great Council of Mechelen, vicar general and ecclesiastical councillor of the Brussels Council of State.

In February 1634 he delivered a formal eulogy of Isabella Clara Eugenia (died December 1633) in the cathedral, published as Oratio funebris Isabellae Clarae Eugeniae Hispaniarum infantis.

In 1651 he was named bishop of Namur, but his installation was delayed until 1654 due to suspicions of Jansenism. In Namur he founded a diocesan seminary and held a diocesan synod for the reform of the clergy. He reported favourably to Pope Alexander VII on the cause for the beatification of the Martyrs of Gorcum.

In April 1668 he succeeded Andreas Creusen as archbishop of Mechelen but died in Brussels on the way to his new see.[1]

Works

His eulogy of the Infanta Isabella was published as:

He was also the author of a life of St Rumbold:

Notes and References

  1. "Wachtendonck (Jean de)", Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. 27 (Brussels, 1938), 4–6.