Saint John Gabriel Perboyre

Saint John Gabriel Perboyre was a French priest of the Congregation of the Mission, founded by Saint Vincent de Paul, a missionary in China and a martyr. After nearly a year of imprisonment and torture he was killed at Wuchang, strangled on a cross. His memorial falls on September 11, the anniversary of his death.

He was born on January 6, 1802, at Puech, in the parish of Montgesty near Cahors in southern France, one of eight children. His family gave the Church three Vincentian missionaries and two Daughters of Charity. He came to the minor seminary in Montauban almost by chance: he was only meant to keep his younger brother Louis company for a while. There, however, he discovered his own vocation. In December 1818 he entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Mission.

For nearly ten years he worked as an educator. He taught young people in the diocese of Amiens, and after his ordination to the priesthood, which he received in Paris in 1826, he trained future diocesan priests at the seminary of Saint-Flour. From 1832 he worked in Paris in the formation of the novices of his congregation. When his brother Louis, also a member of the congregation, died on the way to China at only 24, John Gabriel asked permission to take his place. He also asked others to pray that he might go to China, preach Jesus Christ there, and die for him.

In March 1835 he set out from France, and on August 29 he reached Macau. After an eight-month journey he arrived in the province of Henan, where he learned Chinese and visited small Christian communities. Later he was transferred to the province of Hubei. As the Roman Martyrology notes, in order to preach the Gospel he took on an appearance in keeping with local customs.

In 1839 a persecution of Christians broke out in Hubei. On September 16 soldiers approached the place where he was staying. He hid nearby, but a catechumen, intimidated by them, revealed his hiding place. Arrested, he was brought before one court after another. He was beaten with bamboo rods, made to kneel for hours on iron chains, and hung up by his thumbs and hair. For refusing to trample on the crucifix he received one hundred and ten blows. He did not betray other Christians and did not renounce his faith, and so the viceroy sentenced him to death by strangulation.

The sentence had to be confirmed by the emperor. The confirmation arrived on September 11, 1840, and that same day John Gabriel was led out with seven criminals to a hill called the Red Mountain. He was tied to a cross-shaped post and strangled with a cord. Betrayal, arrest, trial, and death on a cross made his lot resemble the Passion of Christ. His body was later brought back to France.

Pope Leo XIII beatified him in 1889, and John Paul II canonized him on June 2, 1996, in Saint Peter’s Square. In his homily the pope recalled that the new saint liked to repeat: “Only one thing is necessary: Jesus Christ.”