ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY Saints celebrated on the 5th of July WELCOME! 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...