Société des Missions Africaines

né le 4 avril 1876 à Hindesheim dans le diocèse de Strasbourg, France membre de la SMA le 21 avril 1895 prêtre le 16 juillet 1899 décédé le 10 mai 1920

1899-1907 Cork, Irlande, professeur 1907-1920 missionnaire en Géorgie, USA décédé à Mâcon, USA, le 10 mai 1920, à l’âge de 44 ans

A Mâcon (U.S.A.), le 10 mai 1920, retour à Dieu du père Joseph Dalhent, à l'âge de 44 ans.

Joseph Dalhent naquit à Hindesheim, dans le diocèse de Strasbourg, en 1876. Il fit ses études à Richelieu et à Lyon. Il fut ordonné prêtre en 1899. Le père Dalhent fut nommé professeur à Cork, puis en 1907 il est affecté à l'œuvre des Noirs en Amérique. Il fut nommé à Savannah. Il mourut d'une fièvre typhoïde avec empoisonnement du sang.

On a tout fait à l'hôpital pour sauver "une vie si précieuse". Il avait gagné beaucoup de cœurs, même parmi les protestants. Très aimé et vénéré de ses paroissiens, ceux-ci ont voulu que le corps du père soit ramené à Savannah, et ils lui rendirent de grands honneurs. Cet enterrement a été un triomphe pour l'œuvre des Missions Africaines aux Etats-Unis, et spécialement en Géorgie. Une immense foule entourait les autorités religieuses pour accompagner le père à sa dernière demeure.

Father Joseph A. DALHENT (1876 - 1920)

Joseph Dahlent was born in Hindesheim, Alsace-Lorraine, in the diocese of Strasbourg, in 1876.
He died in Macon, Georgia, USA, on May 10, 1920.

Our information on Joseph, who was born 20 years after the foundation of the Society, is incomplete. It is known that he studied the Petit Seminaire des Roches at Chamalieres (Puy-de-Dome) and then was promoted to the Society’s major seminary, at Cours Gambetta, Lyon. Joseph had an older brother, Michel, in the Society. He was assigned to the Gold Coast (Ghana) but died a short time later in Saltpond, aged twenty-six years, on July 22, 1899. Joseph was ordained shortly after his brother’s death, in the seminary chapel, on July 16, 1899. Whether he knew of his brother’s death at the time of his ordination is unknown. Ordained with him on that day was Gustave Obrecht who was also to serve in America.

After ordination Joseph was sent to Ireland where the Society had maintained a branch since 1878. It was customary to send newly-ordained priests from the continent to Ireland to learn English and teach in the apostolic school at Wilton, Cork. Knowledge of English was required because several of the Society’s mission fields, in West Africa and North Africa, were in territories controlled by the British, such as Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt. But there was an additional reason in Joseph’s case. Not only was the death of his brother very recent but Joseph was not physically strong. Joseph remained in Cork for seven years teaching Latin and Greek. During his time in the city he made many friends and a newspaper recorded at the time of his leaving that ‘James O’Mahoney, the famous Irish basso, had said of him: “He was more popular in Cork than the whole college of Cardinals”.’ Joseph’s sojourn in Ireland’s great southern city coincided with the first attempts by the Society to establish itself in North America. For some time there had been a growing concern on the part of certain American Church leaders and by Propaganda Fide about the absence of pastoral care for African-Americans It was against this background that in late 1906 Bishop Benjamin Kiely of Savannah-Atlanta was informed by Rome that pastoral provision for Blacks in his diocese was wholly inadequate that that he should recruit the Society of African Missions to take on the task. Ignace Lissner, an Alsatian member of the Society who had been ordained in 1891, was sent to take up the challenge. In January of the following year two priests of the Society – Gustave Obrecht and Joseph Dahlent - joined him and were dispatched to take charge of the church of St. Benedict the Moor in Savannah, Georgia, remaining there until 1915. Fr. Lissner, his superior, recorded at the time of Joseph’s death that ‘he went about the work of the ministry in that sincere, cheerful way of his that made him a joy to the young and old, a comfort to the good, a source of grace to the wicked and a soothing consolation to the sad and weary of heart.’ His next assignment was to the church of St. Peter Claver, in Macon, Georgia. A confrere wrote that he ‘accomplished here the crowning work of his priestly career, for when he died on May 10, 1920, he left behind him a well-organized congregation of converts, a splendid school, a fine sister’s convent and a rectory large enough for three priests; in addition he also bequeathed the foundations of a church which was afterwards to rise to completion’.

It is known that Joseph died of typhoid fever but little is known of the circumstances in which he contracted the disease or other details surrounding his death. An account written at the time simply recorded that his funeral was ‘a triumphant procession for he was very popular, not only among Catholics, but other religions.’ An incident described in a newspaper clipping found in the archives of the American Province, at Tenafly, NJ, suggests that humor was among the many characteristics which endeared this man to his people.
When the Rev. Jos. A. Dahlent, 41, a native of Strasbourg, Alsace, Germany, applied to Deputy United Sates Clerk Cecil Morgan, Tuesday, to declare his intention to become a citizen he did not know which ruler to renounce his allegiance, the Emperor of Germany or the President of France. ‘You see’, he said to Mr Morgan, ‘part of Alsace is now in the hands of the French while the rest is held by the Germans’. Mr Morgan was up in the air a few moments, too, on the issue, but he finally decided that Fr. Dahlent had better forswear his allegiance to the Emperor of Germany. Germany, he concluded, owned the country when Mr Dahlent was born…

He is buried in the SMA plot in the Catholic Cemetery of Savannah, Georgia, USA.