- Source: Jacques Fabre-Jeune
Jacques Eric Fabre-Jeune, C.S., known before May 2022 as Jacques Fabre, (born November 13, 1955) is a Haitian-born American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Charleston in South Carolina since 2022.
Fabre-Jeune is the first African American to become bishop of Charleston and the first Haitian-American to head a diocese. Since becoming a priest with the Scalabrinians in 1986, Fabre-Jeune has worked in Florida and Georgia, the Dominican Republic, and briefly at a refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
Biography
= Early life
=Jacques Fabre-Jeune was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 13, 1955; he had five siblings. He emigrated to the United States as a teenager and completed high school in New York City. He attended St. John's University in New York, then went to Saint Michael's College in Toronto, Ontario.As a Scalabrini novice, Fabre-Jeune worked at one of their missions in Mexico.
Fabre-Jeune also studied at the Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park, Illinois, and at the Scalabrini House of Theology in Chicago. The Scalabrini Order then sent him to study in Rome, where he received a Master of Divinity degree and a Licentiate in Migration Studies from the Pontifical Urbaniana University.
= Priesthood
=On October 10, 1986, Fabre-Jeune was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn by Auxiliary Bishop Wilton D. Gregory at St. Theresa of Avila Church in Brooklyn.
After his ordination, the Scalabrini Order sent Fabre-Jean to serve at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Immokalee, Florida. In 1990, he was assigned as a chaplain to Haitian refugees being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. During an incident at the base, ten military police officers said that Fabre-Jean attempted to stop them from removing a Haitian man from a cell, resulting in a scuffle.
In 1991, the Scalabrini Order selected Fabre-Jean to serve as pastor of a parish in San Pedro de Macorís in the Dominican Republic. He remained there until 2004. In 2006, he was sent to Georgia to serve as parochial vicar in two parishes:
St. Joseph's Parish in Athens from 2006 to 2008
Holy Trinity Parish in Peachtree City from 2008 to 2010
Also in 2009, Fabre-Jean was named administrator at San Felipe de Jesús Mission in Forest Park. He led the congregation in self-financing the construction of a new church, dedicated in April 2011.
From 2010 to 2022, Fabre-Jeune served the archdiocese as a member of its finance council, budget and operations committee, projects review committee, and as director of the Hispanic Charismatic Renewal. The Scalabrini Order named him the head of their community in Atlanta.
= Bishop of Charleston
=Pope Francis appointed Fabre-Jeune as bishop of Charleston on February 22, 2022. He is the first African-American man to be named to the position and the first member of a religious order. He is the second Haitian-American bishop and the first to head a diocese. Fabre-Jeune was consecrated a bishop by Cardinal Wilton Gregory and installed in Charleston on May 13, 2022.
Fabre-Jeune is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Creole. He has called English his "third language".
See also
References
External links
"Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston".
"Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta".