FABER (FAVRE, LEFÈVRE), PIERRE, blessed. — Jesuit, born on 13 April 1506 at Villaret in Savoie. From 1525 he was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, sharing a room with St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis Xavier at the College of S. Barbara. Ordained a priest and having been promised the degree of magister artium, he gave his name to the nascent Society of Jesus, being the only one already a priest to receive the first vows of his companions at Montmartre (1534). Having moved with them to Italy, to Venice (1536) and Rome (1537), F., commissioned by Paul III, taught theology together with Lainez at the Sapienza.
From 1540 he was in Germany as a peacemaker in the religious controversies, strengthening the Catholics against Protestantism and taking part in various diets at Worms, Ratubona (1540–41), Spira (1542), and Magonza (1543). After a journey to Belgium, on returning to Cologne (1544) F. founded there the first Jesuit residence in Germany. Sent to Spain and Portugal, he worked on ecclesiastical and Order affairs in Lisbon, where Giovanni III wished to keep him permanently, and then in Evora, Valladolid, Toledo, Madrid, Gandia, Valenza, and Barcelona. Recalled to participate in the Council of Trent as the Pope’s theologian, he departed already ill and died in Rome fourteen days after his arrival, on 1 August 1546. He was beatified by Pius IX (5 September 1872). His feast is celebrated on the 11th of the same month. Blessed P. F., through his profound piety, modesty, gentleness, learning, and holiness of life, exercised a great influence in all the places through which he passed, and it is in large part to him that the Society of Jesus owed the sympathy it enjoyed in this way. His diary Memoriale, some letters, and spiritual writings remain; they reveal a soul of intense interior life.