BERTHIEU, JACQUES

BERTHIEU, Jacques. – Missionary who died for the faith in Madagascar. Born at Polminhac (Auvergne) on 26 Nov. 1838 and ordained priest in 1864, he served as vicar at Roannes; entering the Society of Jesus in 1873, he was sent to Madagascar in 1875. He was first superior of the mission on the island of Sainte-Marie, but in 1881 was forced by anti-clerical hostility to abandon II. He then exercised his zeal at Ambohinandroso among the Betsileo, and after France’s war in Madagascar in 1883 at Ambositra, and finally in 1891 at Andrianarivo in northern Imerina. He fell victim to the native revolt and the war of 1895–96. Abandoned, owing to anti-clerical bias, by the head of the French military column while he was accompanying his Christian refugees, he was seized by the insurgents and put to death at Ambitiabé on 8 June 1896. His cause of beatification was introduced in Rome in 1940.