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Daniel Jules Alexis Brottier was born on September 7, 1876, in La Ferté-Saint-Cyr, Loir-et-Cher, France, second son in his family. His father, Jean-Baptiste Brotter, was a coachman for a marquis, and mother, Herminie (néeBouthe), was a homemaker.
One of the favorite tales about young Daniel was his answer to his mother who had asked him what he would like to be when he grew up. He replied, “I won’t be a general or a pastry chef. I will be the Pope.” His mother told him that he would have to become a priest in order to become a pope, so he replied, “Well, then, I’ll become a priest!”
When he was 11, Daniel entered a minor seminary at Blois, a commune and capital city of Loir-et-Cher department. In 1896, at the age of 20, Daniel served in the military in Blois for one year. On October 22, 1899, he was ordained a priest.
Father Daniel’s first assignment was to teach for three years in a secondary school in Pontlevoy, France. Though he served as a teacher, he found that increasingly longed to be a missionary priest. So, in 1902, Father Daniel joined the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans) at Orly and made his novitiate year.
When his noviate was finished, Fr. Daniel was sent to be the vicar of the mission parish of Saint-Louis in Senegal, a country on the Pacific Coast of Africa. Although he wasn’t thrilled to be in a city instead of the more rugged interior, at least he was in an African country as a missionary.
As a parish vicar, he founded a child welfare center, published a parish bulletin called The Echo of St. Louis, and gave weekly instructions to secondary students. Father Daniel was a hard worker, but unfortunately, his body couldn’t handle the climate. Therefore, he had to return to France in 1906 for a six-month convalescence. After his medical sabbatical in France, he returned to Senegal to resume the life of a missionary Spiritan priest. This lasted until 1911 when poor health forced him to return to France for good.
After leaving Senegal, Father Daniel thought he might try a more contemplative way of life, so he made a retreat in the Trappist monastery of Lérins Abbey on the island of Saint-Honorat on the French Riviera. After that experience, Father Daniel decided he was not cut out for a monastic type of life.
Father Daniel then made his life in Paris, but he kept busy. The Apostolic Vicar of Senegal asked him to conduct a capital campaign to raise funds for a cathedral in the capital of Senegal, Dakar. To give Father Daniel some “clout,” he made him the “Vicar General of Dakar” even though he was living in Paris. Father Daniel was up for the challenge, and for two periods over seven years, from 1911-1914 and1919-1923, he raised funds. The time in between the fund-raising periods was World War I.
During the First World War, Father Daniel became a volunteer chaplain for France’s 121st Infantry Regime. The French government cited him six times for bravery and awarded him the Croix de guerre and the Légion d’honneur. In 52 months of active duty on the front lines of battle, Father Daniel never suffered injury. He credited some of this good fortune to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the ‘Little Flower,” one of his favorite saints After the war, he built a chapel in her honor.
In addition to fund-raising and service as a chaplain, the archbishop of Paris asked the Spiritans to take charge of an orphanage in Paris called the Orphan Apprentices of Auteuíl. With the help of an associate chaplain, Father Daniel expanded the facilities and did all he could for the orphans. He loved placing the children in good Catholic homes when he could. He also started workshops, started a printing house and a cinema, and stated magazines. When he arrived at the orphanage, there were 140 orphans. When Father Daniel died, there were more than 1,400.
On February 2, 1936, a few weeks before his death, the cathedral in Dakar for which he raised funds, was dedicated.
Father Daniel died on February 28, 1936 in the Hospital of St. Joseph in Paris, and 15,000 people came to his funeral Mass. He was beatified on November 25, 1984. Blessed Daniel Brottier’s feast day is February 28.
