ROUGIER, FÉLIX. - Priest, founder of Missionaries of the Holy Spirit (v.), b. at Meilhaud on 17 Dec. 1859, d. in Mexico on 10 Jan. 1938.
At the age of eighteen he took the habit of the Marist Fathers at Ste-Foy, and on 24 Sept. 1887 he was ordained priest at Lyons. In 1885 he undertook the foundation of several colleges in Colombia and then in Mexico, where he found the complex of the Works of the Cross already under way. Transferred to Barcelona, he remained there for ten years devoted to teaching; but the Mexican episcopate pressed b. Pius X and obtained the return of R., who on 25 Dec. 1918 began his Institute and entered it in 1930 with the permission of the Holy See. Contrary to the spirit of the times, he intended to restore in himself and in his sons the monastic spirit and even the penances of the ancients, which have by now become inherent in the Institute.