Louis-Frédéric Brugère

Who was Louis-Frédéric Brugère?

Louis-Frédéric Brugère was a Roman Catholic professor of apologetics and church history.

He studied with the Christian Brothers at St. Euverte, and at the Petit Séminaire of Orléans. His poem of 300 lines describing an inundation of the Rhône and composed in 1841 was printed and sold for the benefit of the flood victims at Lyon. He entered the Grand Séminaire of Orléans in 1841 and the Paris Séminaire in 1845, where he received the degrees of Bachelor of Licentiate and Doctor. From 1846 to 1861, with the exception of two years spent as assistant in the parish of St. Aignan, Brugère taught the classics and philosophy in the Orléans diocesan college of La Chapelle-saint-Mesmin. In 1862 he entered the Society of Saint-Sulpice and was appointed professor of apologetics in the seminary of Paris where, in 1868, he occupied the chair of church history in addition to his other labours.

Brugère's teaching was characterized by rare tact and discernment. It was his conviction that, in order to assist in the establishment of communication between the naturally darkened mind and the radiance of revealed truth, the Christian apologist must consider the individual mental attitudes of those whom he would direct. Thus he was a strong advocate of the methodus ascendens ab intrinseco, which was introduced towards the end of the fifteenth century, described in the Catholic Encyclopedia this way: