RETORD, PIERRE-ANDRÉ. - Born 19 May 1803 at Renaison (Loire); died 23 Oct. 1858. Ordained priest 31 May 1828, after three years of ministry in Lyon he entered the Seminary of the Foreign Missions in Paris on 29 June 1831.
On 12 Aug. of that year he departed for western Tonkin, where he carried out an active apostolate despite persecution. Named provicar in 1836, he succeeded in 1839 the vicar apostolic of western Tonkin and on 31 May 1840 was consecrated at Manila. When the persecuting king Minh-mang died in 1841, R. took advantage of the relative calm of the early years of Tu-Duc’s reign to organize his mission, which, after being divided, numbered on 27 March 1876: 3 missionaries, 58 indigenous priests, 254 seminarians, 453 religious, and 117,870 faithful. When persecution resumed, Catholics and two missionaries were killed: Bl. A. Schaeffer (1851) and Fr. J. L. Bonnard (1852). Abp. R. took refuge in the mountains and died in a hut in the forests of Dong-ban, province of Ha-Nam. In 1864 his body was transferred to Ke-so.