Libermann, François, Venerable

LIBERMANN, PAUL, Venerable. - Born at Saverne (France) on 12 April 1802 and died in Paris on 2 February 1852. The fifth son of the rabbi of the city, he was educated in Judaism and destined to become a rabbi. At the age of 20, having gone to Paris for his studies, he occupied himself with Catholic doctrine and on 24 December 1826 received Baptism. In 1827 he entered the Seminary of St. Sulpice. On the eve of the subdiaconate (1829), nervous crises prevented him from receiving the Orders.

Sent to the Seminary of Issy, he found there two Creoles from La Réunion and from St-Domingue, who spoke to him of the spiritual abandonment of the black slaves of those islands. L. decided to save those souls and came to Rome to have his project of a missionary society approved by Propaganda. Cured of his epileptic crises at Loreto (1840), L. was able to be ordained a priest in 1841 and gave beginning to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was later approved by Rome. In 1848 his Congregation merged with the Society of the Holy Spirit and L. was elected superior general. He labored with all his strength for the development of the nascent congregation and sent many missionaries among the blacks. He was a renewer of the missions of Africa, a master of missionary spirituality and a champion of the idea of the indigenous clergy. On 19 June 1910 the decree of the heroicity of his virtues was published (AAS, 2 [1910], pp. 487-88).