Peter Chanel

Chanel was born in the hamlet of La Potière near Montrevel-en-Bresse, Ain département, France. Son of Claude-François Chanel and Marie-Anne Sibellas he was the fifth of eight children. From about the age of 7 to 12 he worked as a shepherd. The local parish priest persuaded his parents to allow Peter to attend a small school the priest had started. After some local schooling, his piety and intelligence attracted the attention of a visiting priest from Cras, the abbé Trompier, who took over the boy's education at Cras in the autumn of 1814. He made his first communion on 23 March 1817.[1]

It was from that time that Chanel's attraction for the missions abroad began. His interest began when he read letters from missionaries to America sent back by Bishop Louis William Valentine Dubourg. He later said, "It was that year that I formed the idea of going to the foreign missions." In 1819 he entered the minor seminary at Meximieux where he won several awards and class prizes in Latin, Christian doctrine, and oratory. He attended the Belley diocesan college in 1823, and the major seminary at Brou in 1824.[2]

Chanel was ordained on 15 July 1827[3] and spent a brief time as an assistant priest at Ambérieu-en-Bugey. At Ambérieu he also read letters from a former curate from that parish who was at that time a missionary in India. There he met Claude Bret, who was to become his friend and also one of the first Marist Missionaries. The following year, Chanel applied to the Bishop of Belley for permission to go to the missions. His application was not accepted and instead, he was appointed for the next three years as parish priest of Crozet.[1] Chanel found his new parish in a deplorable state. On Sundays and feast days, the church was almost empty. The children, idle and left to themselves. The priest went on a pilgrimage to Annecy, to the tomb of Francis de Sales who had once visited his parish.

Chanel's zeal was respected, and his care, particularly of the sick in the parish,[4] won the hearts of the locals. During this time, Chanel heard of a group of diocesan priests who were hopeful of starting a religious order to be dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus

Statue of St Peter Chanel at the Lourdes Center, Boston, Massachusetts

In 1831, at the age of 28, Chanel joined the nascent Society of Mary (Marists),[1] who would concentrate on local missions and foreign missionary work. Instead of selecting him as a missionary, however, the Marists appointed him as the spiritual director at the seminary of Belley, where he stayed for five years.[4] In 1833, he accompanied Jean-Claude Colin to Rome to seek approval of the nascent Society. In 1836, the Marists were asked to send missionaries to the territory of the southwest Pacific.[5] In return for eventual acceptance, the group were promised formal approbation, granted by Pope Gregory XVI. Chanel, professed with the other aspirants as Marist on 24 September 1836, was made the superior of the band of seven Marist missionaries that set out on 24 December from Le Havre on the Delphine accompanied by the new Bishop of Maronea (Western Oceania), Jean-Baptiste Pompallier .[6] Chanel was not deterred by the dangers of such a long sea voyage.

Chanel traveled first to the Canary Islands (8 January 1837), where his friend, Claude Bret, caught a flu-like virus which led to his death at sea (20 March 1837). Next, Chanel traveled to Valparaíso, Chile (28 June), where the French Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ("Picpus Fathers"), who had care of the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Oceania, had their base. His third and fourth stops were in the Gambier Islands (13 September) and in Tahiti (21 September), where the group transferred to the ship Raiatea. In that ship, they set sail (23 October) to drop off two missionaries at Wallis, the main seat of the mission in Tonga. The missionaries arrived at Vava’u but were not welcome, and thus continued their journey to Futuna. Chanel went to neighboring Futuna, accompanied by a French lay brother Marie-Nizier Delorme. They arrived on 8 November 1837 with an English Protestant layman named Thomas Boag, who had been resident on the island and had joined them at Tonga seeking passage to Futuna.[5]

The group was initially well received by Futuna's king, Niuliki. Chanel struggled to learn the language but eventually mastered it. Despite little apparent success and severe want, he maintained endless patience and courage. On 2 February 1839, a cyclone destroyed almost all the houses and plantations on the island. Chanel laboured faithfully amid the greatest hardships, attending the sick, baptizing the dying, and winning from all the name of "the man with the kind heart".[6] It was a difficult mission, requiring him to cope with isolation and acclimatise to different foods and customs, but it eventually began to bear some fruit. A few natives had been baptised while a few more were being instructed.[4] King Niuliki believed Christianity would undermine his authority as high priest and king. When his son, Meitala, sought to be baptised, the king sent a favored warrior, his son-in-law, Musumusu, to "do whatever was necessary" to resolve the problem. Musumusu went to Meitala and the two fought. Musumusu, injured in the fracas, went to Chanel feigning need of medical attention. While Chanel tended him, a group of others ransacked his house. Musumusu took an ax and clubbed Chanel to death. Chanel died on 28 April 1841.[7]