LOUIS-THOMAS NUIRATE. — Minim, theologian, martyr of the French Revolution, b. at Marseille on 21 Dec. 1724, d. there on 23 July 1792. At the age of sixteen he entered the Order of Minims.
For several years he was professor of rhetoric and theology, superior in various convents of his Province of Provence, at Rome at the Trinità dei Monti, and finally recalled to his homeland as head of the large province. He zealously maintained regular discipline, promoted studies, and enlarged the conventual library of Marseille, which after the Revolution served as the foundation for that of the city. With the coming of the French Revolution, the Church of Marseille saw its clergy dispersed, a constitutional bishop imposed, and the Jesuits and other religious expelled. NUIRATE, however, assisted by the young confrere Fr. Luigi Tacy (1765–92), continued secretly to aid hidden faithful and religious. When discovered, the two champions of the faith were condemned to death and hanged from a lantern. The intrusive bishop, Roux, unable to restrain his emotion, fell to his knees exclaiming: “They are two saints!” A cause for beatification has been introduced, to which a third confrere, Fr. Gian Gabriele Vigne (1736–92), was added; he too was killed for the faith a month later in the city of Aix. Fr. NUIRATE published: Oration funèbre de mgr de Belsunce, 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).