Saint Jean-Gabriel Perboyre

Jean-Gabriel Perboyre was born on January 6, 1802, at Le Puech, in the parish of Montgesty, in the Lot, and was baptized the next day in the church of Montgesty. He was the eldest of the eight children of Pierre and Marie Perboyre, a farming family of the diocese of Cahors, and his uncle Jacques was a priest of the Congregation of the Mission. He went with a younger brother to his uncle’s college at Montauban, stayed on to study there, and entered the Congregation of the Mission, the Vincentians, on December 15, 1818.

He was ordained priest on September 23, 1826, in the chapel of the Daughters of Charity on the rue du Bac in Paris. He taught theology at the seminary of Saint-Flour, and in 1832 he was called to the mother house in Paris to direct the formation of novices. He asked to be sent to China, sailed from Le Havre in March 1835, and reached Macao on August 29, 1835, where he spent four months learning Chinese.

After eight months of travel he reached Nanyang, in Henan, and from 1838 he served the Christians of Hubei, in the country of lakes along the Yangtze. On September 15, 1839, he was arrested after a catechumen, under threat, revealed his hiding place. He was tried at Kou-Ching-Hien, at Siang-Yang and then at Wuchang, before four tribunals and in some twenty interrogations, and he was tortured. According to Vatican Radio, he told his judges: “I would sooner die than deny my faith.”

The viceroy sentenced him to death by strangulation. When the emperor’s confirmation arrived, he was led on September 11, 1840, to a height at Wuchang, now part of Wuhan, called the Red Mountain. Seven criminals were executed first; he was then tied to a post in the shape of a cross and strangled, at the age of thirty-eight.

Gregory XVI declared him Venerable in July 1843, and Leo XIII beatified him in November 1889. Saint John Paul II canonized him in Rome on June 2, 1996, and recalled in his homily the motto he loved to repeat: “Only one thing is necessary: Jesus Christ.” Twenty years after his death his remains were brought to the mother house of the Vincentians in Paris. Today they rest in the chapel at 95 rue de Sèvres, where the shrine of Saint Vincent de Paul stands above the high altar and an altar in a side aisle, under stained-glass windows, is dedicated to him. On September 11, 2024, Bishop Laurent Camiade of Cahors presided at a day of pilgrimage in his native parish, at Le Puech and Montgesty, organized by the Association Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, and his relics were carried in procession to his birthplace.

A large statue of him in Chinese dress stands at the entrance of the family farmhouse at Le Puech, part of which dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. A statue dedicated in 1897 stands in front of the Gothic church of Montgesty, which also has an altar, a stained-glass window and a plaque recalling his baptism.

• Paris, Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul, 95 rue de SèvresThe chapel of the Vincentian mother house, where his relics rest and an altar in a side aisle is dedicated to him.
• Paris, Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, rue du BacThe chapel of the Daughters of Charity where he was ordained priest on September 23, 1826.
• Montgesty, Le PuechThe farmhouse where he was born, at 1625 route du Puech, with a statue of him at its entrance; the pilgrimage of September 11, 2024, began there.
• Montgesty, parish churchThe church of his baptism, with an altar, a window and a plaque in his memory, and his statue of 1897 before it.