CHALLONER, Richard, English Roman Catholic bishop: b. Lewes, England, 29 Sept. 1691; d. London, 12 Jan. 1781. His parents were Protestant dissenters from the established religion of England. After the death of his father young Challoner came under other in fluences and was received into the Catholic Church. At the age of 13 years he entered the English college at Douai in France and there, after completing his studies, was ordained priest and appointed professor of divinity. He remained in this station till 1730, when he was sent on the English mission with London as his field. He wrote many controversial tractates and many devotional manuals. Among his writings is 'The Catholic Christian Instructed,' a sort of advance catechism of the Roman Catholic faith, in the preface to which he made an ingenious and spirited reply to Dr. Mid dleton's famous 'Letter from Rome, Showing an Exact Conformity Between Popery and Paganism.' Middleton, smarting from the keenness of Challoner's controversial weapons, invoked against his adversary the penalties pre scribed by the penal laws enacted for the ex termination of the Roman Catholic religion.
In 1741 Challoner was consecrated bishop and made coadjutor to the bishop in charge of the "London District," for the assumption of a see-title in England by a Roman Catholic bishop was a penal offense. Besides the work already mentioned, Challoner wrote the de votional work, 'Garden of the Soul,' which is still in general use among Roman Catholics as a prayer-book. He wrote also, in two volumes, 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests and Other Catholics of both Sexes Who Suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on Account of Their Religion, from the Year 1577 till the End of the Reign of Charles IP ; also 'Britannia Sancta,' lives of English, Scotch and Irish saints. He revised the Douai-Rheims English version of the Old and New Testaments, im proving and modernizing the style. For his 'Life,' consult Barnard (1784) and Burton (London 1909).