Sower of the Seed
John Mary Odin, C.M.
First Bishop of Galveston 1847 – 1862

Two Years after Texas gained its admission into the United States, Galveston was erected as the twenty-eighth Diocese in the nation on May 4, 1847. Its boundaries were those of the state, and its first bishop was John M. Odin, C.M., who for five years had been its vicar. The former Republic of Texas was a Vicariate-Apostolic. Texas is proud of its great area, and Catholics should be proud of the superhuman efforts of her pioneer priests to spread the faith. The erection of the Diocese found thirteen priests laboring in Texas while one convent opened by the Ursuline Sisters was in existence at Galveston. John Mary Odin was born in the village of Hauteville, France, on February 25, 1800, the seventh of ten children. He began his seminary studies in his native France but, eager for work in mission lands, he heeded the invitation of the Right Reverend Louis DuBourg of New Orleans to work in his Diocese. Arriving in the United States in 1822, he was ordained to the priesthood on May 4, 1832, at the Barrens, Missouri, famed pioneer seminary of the Congregation of the Missions of which Father Odin was a member. For some years, he was a professor at his Alma Mater, at the same time looking after missions in the vicinity. Later his work was the care of the Missouri Missions exclusively. On May 2, 1840, Father Odin was sent to Texas as Vice-Prefect Apostolic to serve as the representative of Father John Timon, C. M., the Prefect. Less than two years later he was raised to the Episcopate as titular Bishop of Claudiopolis and Vicar-Apostolic of Texas, in the Cathedral at New Orleans. No source of income was at the disposal of the stout-hearted leader; yet on March 14, 1847, seven weeks before its elevation to a Diocese, Galveston had seen the cornerstone of its Cathedral laid. This old edifice, symbol of the lasting works of her bishops, clergy, and religious and of the very Rock of Peter itself, has observed 100 years of history. John Mary Odin had Galveston as his See City but the farthest reaches of the largest state of the Union were not strange to him. Up and down its thousands of square miles he went, preaching in all conceivable places, even in Protestant churches, speaking to all classes of people and even to the Legislature of the State itself. In 1849, His Excellency brought to his Diocese the Oblates of Mary Immaculate to care for the Rio Grande valley, in which garden spot and in other parts of the Diocese this great Order has worked for the faith for almost a century of the Diocese’s existence. In spring of 1854, Bishop Odin built a seminary in Frelsburg, Texas, under the direction of Father V. Gury. His zeal for the spread of the faith resulted in forty priests by 1855, and “one poor bishop”; though the same year he was visited with a tragic loss of seven of them during an epidemic of yellow fever. The Sisters of the Incarnate Word, so familiar to the Diocese with their own centenary now in sight, were brought from France, as were the Brothers of Mary. The first diocesan synod was convened by Bishop Odin on June 20, 1858, and in the same year new churches were built in San Antonio (St. Mary’s) and Brownsville (Immaculate Conception), and in 1860 a convent at Liberty by the Ursulines. In the same year, he brought the Benedictine Fathers and the Franciscans into this Diocese. On April 19, 1861, Bishop Odin was promoted by His Holiness, Pius IX, to the Archiepiscopal See of New Orleans. He left behind him for his successor forty-five churches, and forty-six priests.

Truly was John Mary Odin the husbandman, Sower of the Seed, in the Diocese of Galveston.

COUNCIL SIZE

Bishop Odin Council #2917 currently has 891 members and about 375 Honorary Life Members. Today, Bishop Odin Council 2917 of Houston, Texas is the largest in Texas!