Blessed John Francis Burté and Companions.
These
priests were victims of the French Revolution. Though their martyrdom
spans a period of several years, they stand together in the Church’s
memory because they all gave their lives for the same principle. The
Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1791) required all priests to take an
oath which amounted to a denial of the faith. Each of these men refused
and was executed.
John Francis Burté became a Franciscan at 16 and after ordination
taught theology to the young friars. Later he was guardian of the large
Conventual friary in Paris until he was arrested and held in the convent
of the Carmelites.
Appolinaris of Posat was born in 1739 in Switzerland. He joined
the Capuchins and acquired a reputation as an excellent preacher,
confessor and instructor of clerics. Sent to the East as a missionary,
he was in Paris studying Oriental languages when the French Revolution
began. Refusing the oath, he was swiftly arrested and detained in the
Carmelite convent.
Severin Girault, a member of the Third Order Regular, was a
chaplain for a group of sisters in Paris. Imprisoned with the others, he
was the first to die in the slaughter at the convent.
These three plus 182 others—including several bishops and many
religious and diocesan priests—were massacred at the Carmelite house in
Paris on September 2, 1792. They were beatified in 1926.
John Baptist Triquerie, born in 1737, entered the Conventual
Franciscans. He was chaplain and confessor of Poor Clare monasteries in
three cities before he was arrested for refusing to take the oath. He
and 13 diocesan priests were guillotined in Laval on January 21, 1794.
He was beatified in 1955.
