SORETH, JEAN, blessed. – Carmelite General, born in Caen in 1394–95, died at Angers in 1471.
Appointed to teach the Bible and the Sentences at the University of Paris in 1430, he obtained his licentiate there in December 1437 and his master’s degree in May 1438, assuming the regency the following September. From 1430 he was provincial of France. At the Chapter of 1451 he was unanimously elected prior general of the entire Order. He took an active part in the ecclesiastical events of his time; noteworthy was his firm attitude during the seditions that disturbed the Church of Liège. Venerated as a saint soon after his death, his cult was approved in 1866. Feast day, 28 (27) July.
The great work of S. was the reform of the Order. He effectively assisted the Congregation of Mantua and established reformed convents in all the provinces for the rigorous practice of regular observance. Taking advantage of a bull of Nicholas V (1452), he promoted the foundation of monasteries of Carmelite nuns (among whom he received the duchess of Brittany, blessed Francesca d'Amboise) and of fraternities of the secular Third Order, for which he composed the first Rule.
Writings: Expositio paraenetica in Regulam Carmelitarum, printed in Paris in 1625 with the life written by Walter de Terranova, his associate, and reprinted in Speculum Carm. (I, Antwerp 1680, pp. 689–741); Constitutiones Ord. Carm., approved by the General Chapter of 1462, printed in 1499, 1524, and 1573; Troisième règle des Frères et Soeurs de Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, printed by Fr. Filippo della Visitazione in 1675 and reprinted in Analecto Ord. Carm. (3 [1914–16], pp. 263–63).