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Augustin Schoeffler

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Saint Augustin Schoeffler
Saint Augustin Schoeffler.
Martyr
Born22 November 1822
Mittelbronn, France
Died1 May 1851 (aged 28)
Son Tay, Vietnam
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church
Beatified7 May 1900 by Pope Leo XIII
Canonized19 June 1988, Rome, Italy by John-Paul II
Major shrineMittelbronn, France
FeastMay 1 (May 2 locally in France)
PatronageMetz Seminary

Augustin Schoeffler (1822–1851) was a French saint and martyr in the Roman Catholic Church and a member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. He was a priest in Lorraine who joined the Foreign Missions of Paris.[1] He worked as a missionary to Indochina and was one of two French missionaries killed in northern Vietnam between 1847 and 1851.[2] At the time, it was illegal to proselytize in Vietnam.

His feast day is May 1 (May 2 locally in France).[1]

Early life and education

Augustin Schoeffler was born on the 22 of November, 1822, in Mittlebronn, France.[3] He was baptized the next day. From 1834-1842 he studied at the minor seminary of Pont-à-Mousson and the college of Phalsbourg. From 1842-1846 Schoeffler studied Philosophy at the major seminary of Nancy. On the 5 October 1846, he began training in the Seminary of Foreign Missions of Paris. On May 29, 1847 Augustin Schoeffler was ordained a priest in Paris.[4]

Missionary Life

  • November 18, 1847: left Antwerp for Tonkin.
  • July 6, 1848: arrived in Tonkin.
  • 1848-1851: Worked as missionary while learning the Vietnamese language.
  • Spring 1850: Left for the north of the country where his bishop gave him the task of evangelizing to Son Tay.
  • March 1, 1851: Schoeffler was arrested.
  • March 5, 1851: Schoeffler was found guilty of proselytizing.
  • May 1, 1851: Schoeffler was beheaded at Son Tay.[4]

As Father Schoeffler walked to his place of execution, a placard, which read, "He preached truly the whole charge of preaching the religion of Jesus. His crime is patent. Let Mr. Augustin be beheaded, and cast into a stream."[5] was carried before him. Augustin Schoeffler's head was thrown into the Red River, and was never recovered.[3] The crowd rushed to collect relics. Some even uprooted the grass that was stained with his blood.[6] His body was buried on the site of his execution. Two days later, local Christians exhumed the body and reburied it in a Christian village nearby.[3]

Sainthood

On September 24, 1857, Augustin Schoeffler was declared Venerable by Pope Pius IX. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on May 7, 1900. He was made a saint by Pope John Paul II on June 19, 1988.

Relics

As of May 10, 2009 a relic of Augustin Schoeffler can be found at the Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, Michigan.[7] Descendants of Schoeffler's family live in the area and attend the church.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Englebert, Omer (1994). The Lives of Saints. Christopher Fremantle, Anne Fremantle (trans.). New York: Barnes and Noble Books. ISBN 978-1-56619-516-4.
  2. ^ McLeod, Mark W. (1991). The Vietnamese response to French intervention, 1862-1874. New York: Praeger. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-275-93562-7.
  3. ^ a b c Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris[permanent dead link] Template:Fr icon
  4. ^ a b Noblet, Joseph; Jean-Paul Berlocher (1988). An Adventurer For God. p. 46. OCLC 25134446.
  5. ^ Marshall, Thomas William M (1862). Christian Missions; Their Agents, Their Method, and Their Results. London Burns and Lambert. OCLC 162573014.
  6. ^ Nola Cooke (June 2004). "Early Nineteenth-Century Vietnamese Catholics and Others in the Pages of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 35 (2): 261–285. doi:10.1017/s0022463404000141.
  7. ^ Assumption Grotto News[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ Te Deum laudamus!
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