Jacques Berthieu
| Jacques Berthieu, SJ | |
|---|---|
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|
| Jesuit priest, Martyr of Madagascar | |
| Born |
November 27, 1838 Polminhac, Cantal, France |
| Died | June 8, 1896 (aged 57) Ambiatibe, Madagascar |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church, Society of Jesus, Madagascar |
| Beatified | October 17, 1965, Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City by Pope Paul VI |
| Canonized | October 21, 2012, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI |
| Feast | 08 June (Roman Catholic) |
Father Jacques Berthieu (born November 27, 1838, at Polminhac, Cantal, France; died June 8, 1896, at Ambiatibe, Madagascar), was a French Jesuit, priest and missionary in Madagascar. He died for the Christian faith during the Menalamba rebellion of 1896. He was 57 years old. He is the first martyr of Madagascar to be beatified (made a blessed). He was canonized a saint at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI, along with some others, at papal canonization Mass on October 21, 2012, in the middle of a meeting of the Catholic Synod of Bishops.
Jacques Berthieu was born on November 27, 1838, in the area of Montlogis, in Polminhac, in the Auvergne in central France, the son of deeply Christian farmers of modest means. His childhood was spent working and studying, surrounded by his family. The early death of an older sister made him the oldest of six children. He studied at the seminary of Saint-Flour and was ordained to the priesthood for this diocese on May 21, 1864. His bishop, Monseigneur de Pompignac, named him vicar in Roannes-Saint Mary, where he replaced an ill and aged priest. He served as a diocesan priest for nine years.
Because of his desire to evangelize distant lands, and to ground his spiritual life in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, he sought admission to the Society of Jesus and entered the novitiate in Pau on October 31, 1873 at the age of thirty-five.
He sailed from the port of Marseille in 1875 to two islands in the vicinity of Madagascar that were then under French jurisdiction, Réunion and Sainte-Marie, where he studied Malagasy and prepared himself for the mission. The beginnings of his missionary life were not easy for this 37-year-old Jesuit. Climate, language, culture were all totally new things which made him exclaim, "My uselessness and my spiritual misery serve to humiliate me, but not to discourage me. I await the hour when I can do something, with the grace of God". Mindful of his farming background, he was happy to cultivate the kitchen garden that supplied the station. He and two other Jesuits and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny formed a missionary team. There he was engaged in pastoral work for five years, until March 1880.
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