Biography of 	Frain, Celestin Marie Charles Francois Xavier Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by 	Mike Miller August 2001

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The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Celestin Marie Charles Francois Xavier Frain, honorary
chaplain of his Holiness Pius IX. and his Holiness Leo XIII., canon of St. Louis
Cathedral, New Orleans, and pastor of the church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
in the same city, was born at Miniac, in the diocese of Rennes, Brittany,
France.  He was educated in the college of St. Meen, and made his ecclesiastical
studies partly in the great Seminary of Rennes, where he received the tonsure
and the minor orders from Monsignor Godfroy St. Marc, the right reverend bishop
of Rennes, and partly in Marseilles, where he went to prepare himself for the
ministry in the foreign missions, anxious to devote his life to the conversion
of the poor infidels.  There he was ordained sub-deacon and deacon by the Right
Reverend Bishop of Marseilles, Monsignor Eugene De Mazenod.  On June 8, 1856, in
the old Cathedral of St. Martin, he was ordained a priest by the same holy
bishop.  For a few months after his ordination, he acted as one of the chaplains
of the famous sanctuary of Our Lady of Lagarde in the city of Marseilles.  In
May, 1857, Rev. Father C. M. Frain left France and crossed the Atlantic to
British America, where he spent several years as missionary amongst the North
American Indians, in the Hudson Bay territory.  In 1863, obliged to leave, those
so very arduous missions of the extreme north of British America, on account of
ill health, he returned to France.  He then went to Rome, and having received
the blessing of his Holiness Pius IX., and his health being much improved after
a few months of rest in his family and amongst his good friends of La Belle
France, he again crossed the Atlantic, landed at New York on November 6, 1885,
and from that time until now he has been very actively engaged in the holy
ministry of the missionary priests in the United States.  He first went to
Detroit, Mich., where, at the urgent solicitation of Rt. Rev. Bishop Lefevre, he
accepted the charge of pastor of the church of Redford, in December, 1885.  In
December, 1866, he was transferred from Redford to the more important parish of
St. Mary, in Marshall, and from Marshall he had to attend to the church of
Battle Creek, of Albion and of Charlotte.  It was too much work for the feeble
health of Father Frain.  Also in December, 1868, he had to give up his pastorate
of Marshall, and by the order of the doctor to leave Michigan and go to a milder
climate.  He then came to New Orleans, where, for over twenty years, he has
accomplished with great zeal his duty in the different positions assigned to
him.  He was for about three years assistant priest at the Cathedral, and,
later, in March, 1874, was appointed pastor of the St. Vincent de Paul church,
in the city.  In April, 1875, he became the private secretary to his Grace
Monsignor N. J. Perche' and went to Rome with him.  He remained two years in
Europe with the archbishop, and from December, 1876, until April, 1881,
notwithstanding being the private secretary of the archbishop, he was very often
called to give mission in the archdiocese of New Orleans, and never, when
possible, did he refuse such a call.  In April, 1881, Monsignoir N. J. Perche',
having no other priest to send as pastor to the church of Our Lady of the Sacred
Heart, he appointed his private secretary to take charge of that poor and
difficult parish.  There we can find him to-day devoting himself entirely to the
salvation of his parishioners, white or colored.  May God bless him!  His
Holiness Pius IX. honored Rev. Father C. M. Frain with the title of Mansignor
and the dignity of his honorary chaplain in October, 1875.  Leo XIII. conferred
on him the same dignity in 1878.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 1), pp. 406-407. 
Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.