ANDREA UBERTO FOURNET, SANTO

ANDREW HUBERT FOURNET, saint. — Born on 6 Dec. 1752 at Saint-Pierre-de-Maillé in Poitou, died at La Puye on 13 May 1834. In 1772 he enrolled at the University of Poitiers, but through youthful frivolity abandoned his studies and for a short time became a soldier. He soon afterwards embraced the ecclesiastical state and was ordained priest in 1776. He served as vicar at Haims (1777–79) and at Saint-Pierre-de-Maillé (1779–81), and in 1781 was appointed parish priest in his native parish, where he devoted himself to an entirely apostolic ideal of life. In 1791 he refused the oath imposed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Deprived of his parish, he exercised his ministry secretly, often at the risk of his life, until in September 1792 he was forced to go into exile in Spain, where he lived until the end of 1797 in the small town of Arcos in Navarre. Returning secretly to his homeland, he resumed the proscribed exercise of worship even while persecution still raged. From 1798 he spiritually directed St. RAGES (v.), whom he induced to found a religious society for the care of the sick and the religious instruction of children, called the Daughters of the Cross (1807). Resigning his parish in 1820, he took up residence near the institute’s seat at La Puye, where he spent his final years dedicated to the spiritual formation of the religious and other works of apostolic ministry among the people and the clergy. Beatified on 16 May 1926, he was canonized on 4 June 1933. His feast is celebrated on 13 May.