Saints celebrated on the 5th of July
BLESSED JOSEPH BOISSEL, PRIEST AND MARTYR
Joseph Boissel was born into a family of modest farmers in Brittany and became orphaned at the age of fourteen. He then entered the Jersey School of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He was ordained a priest on July 4, 1937 and was sent to a missionary centre in Laos, which had been opened less than two years earlier.
HE WAS SENT TO A MISSIONARY CENTRE IN LAOS
His pastoral work began with the Hmongs of Xieng Khouang. The kingdom of Laos, associated with France since 1893, was very little Christianised. The populations of the valleys and the Mekong basin were strongly Buddhist, while the minority ethnic groups in the mountains and forests were still largely animists.
HE WAS DEPORTED
The Second World War cut French Indochina off from the mother country - which was itself occupied after the defeat of June 1940. Laos, like the rest of Indochina, became occupied by Japan. Everything accelerated after the Japanese coup in March 1945: officials, settlers, French soldiers, etc. were arrested, gathered in camps and some executed. Father Boissel was deported to the Vinh camp in Tonkin.
DESPITE POOR HEALTH DUE TO DEPRIVATION, HE RETURNED TO WORK
After the Japanese surrender, in 1946 he found his original mission centre totally ruined, and despite poor health due to deprivation, he returned to work: catechism tours, care for the sick, celebrations and sacraments, agricultural work, etc. At the end of October 1948 to mid-1949, he was sent for some rest in France.
In mid-1949, he was appointed to Paksane in the Mekong valley, where he helped set up the seminary. In 1952, he returned to Xieng Khouang; but the Indochina war upset the situation.
THE COUNTRY WAS DIVIDED INTO FACTIONS
Despite everything, he continued the evangelisation and humanitarian assistance of the Thai Dam populations around Ban Na, but without conversion success. He also oversaw the training of catechumens from other ethnic groups. In 1953, poor and underpopulated Laos obtained its independence, but the country was divided into factions: they were above all the government neutralists, the royalists courted by the Americans and the Communists of Pathet Lao supported by the revolutionary Viet Minh.
In November 1957, Father Boissel, leaving his mission to the future martyr, Father Louis Leroy, was on leave in France, where he took the opportunity to make pilgrimages to Lourdes, Ars and Rome.
HE WAS APPOINTED PARISH PRIEST OF LONG VENG AND LAK SI
Back in Laos, he was appointed parish priest of Long Veng and then of Lak Si. He also took care of the villages of refugees from Xieng Khouang who fled the atrocities of Pathet Lao further north. They lived in dire poverty, having given up everything to save their faith. Father Boissel had a great love for the sick, children and the elderly.
GUERILLAS WERE EVERYWHERE
In December 1959, a missionary, Father René Dubroux, was assassinated in odium fidei in the south of the country with his catechist. By now, the guerrillas were everywhere. In 1960-1961, tension increased, the country experienced an overthrow of government. Refugees poured in and a number of priests and catechists were killed around the country.
In the following years, the Vietnam War destabilised the country (which served as a base for the Vietcongs). Entire regions of the country were at war. Father Lucien Galan was assassinated in 1968.
HE TRAVELLED BY CAR TO MINISTER TO THE FAITHFUL
In 1969, it was dangerous for Father Boissel to venture onto the trails around his mission centre. On July 5, however, he went about twenty kilometers from Paksane to go to Hat Lêt (Khmus refugee village), to minister. But at a bend on the way, he was shot down by a round of submachine guns from the Viet Minh which had been watching him for some time. Fr Boissel was hit in the head. The jeep went into a ditch, turned over and burst into flames. Fr Boissel died on the spot.
THE BEATIFICATION PROCESS
The beatification process was opened by the diocese of Nantes in 2008 and sent to Rome in 2010. Pope Francis recognised the martyrdom of Father Boissel in 2015, as well as that of sixteen other witnesses of the faith of that time in Laos, including eight other French missionaries, a young Italian missionary, a Laotian priest and five Laotian lay people from different ethnicities, the youngest of which was sixteen years old. The beatification ceremony took place in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Vientiane on December 11, 2016 in the presence of the pontifical delegate, Cardinal Quevedo OMI and all the clergy of the country.
Information from Wikipedia France -
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Boissel
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