NUIRATE, LOUIS-THOMAS. – Minim friar, theologian, and martyr of the French Revolution, born in Marseille on 21 December 1724, where he died on 23 July 1792; at the age of sixteen he entered the Order of Minims.
Professor of rhetoric and theology for several years, superior in several convents of his province of Provence, at the Trinità dei Monti in Rome, and finally recalled to his homeland as head of the extensive province, he promoted regular discipline, encouraged studies, and enlarged the convent library of Marseille, which after the Revolution served as the foundation of that of the Municipality. With the French Revolution, the Church of Marseille saw its clergy dispersed, a constitutional bishop installed, and the Jesuits and religious expelled. N., however, assisted by his young confrere Fr. Luigi Taxy (1765–92), continued secretly to minister to the faithful and to the religious in hiding. Discovered, the two champions of the faith were condemned to death and hanged from a lamppost. The intruded bishop himself, Roux, unable to master his emotion, fell to his knees and exclaimed: “They are two saints!” The cause of beatification has been introduced, associating with it a third confrere, Fr. Gian Gabriele Vigne (1736–92), who was likewise killed for the faith one month later, in the city of Aix. Fr. N. published: Oraison funèbre de mgr de Belvance, évêque de Marseille (Marseille 1756); Cantiques spirituels à l'usage des missions des prêtres séculiers (ibid. 1775, 2nd ed. 1783); Vie du b. Gaspar Bon, de l'Ordre des Minimes (ibid. 1788).