Soreth, Jean, Blessed

SORETH, Jean, Blessed. - Prior General of the Carmelites, b. at Caen in 1394-95, d. at Angers in 1471.

Appointed to teach the Bible and the Sentences at the University of Paris in 1430, he obtained the licentiate there in Dec. 1437 and the mastership in May 1438, assuming the regency in the following Sept. 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 is his firm stance during the seditions that troubled the Church of Liège. Venerated early as a saint, his cult was approved in 1866. Feast on 28 (27) July.

The great work of the S[ervant of God] was the reform of the Order. He effectively assisted the Congregation of Mantua and in all the provinces established reformed convents for the strict practice of the regular observance. Availing himself of a bull of Nicholas V (1452), he promoted the founding of monasteries of Carmelite nuns (among whom he received the Duchess of Brittany, Blessed Françoise d'Amboise) and of fraternities of the secular Third Order, for which he composed the first Rule.

Writings: Expositio paraenetica in Regulam Carmelitarum, printed at Paris in 1625 together with the life written by Walter de Terranova, his companion, reprinted in the Speculum Carm. (I, Antwerp 1680, pp. 689-741); Constitutiones Ord. Carm., approved by the General Chapter of 1462, printed in the years 1499, 1524, 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).

Bartolomeo M. Xiberta