Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri [key], 1802–61, French Roman Catholic preacher and liberal. Ordained in 1827, he came under the influence of Lamennais and collaborated with him on Avenir, a journal advocating ultramontanism, complete freedom of the church from the state, and a wide program of democratic reform. After papal condemnation of the journal, Lacordaire submitted. He became known as one of the greatest Catholic preachers; his sermons at Notre-Dame in Paris were the literary and social sensation of the day. He entered the Dominican order and was responsible for the revival of that order in France. Always a liberal, Lacordaire greeted the revolution of 1848 with enthusiasm and sat for a time as a deputy on the left. The coup of Napoleon III sent him into voluntary exile after he had attacked the government unsparingly. In 1861 he was elected to the French Academy.
See biography by L. C. Sheppard (1964).
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