On this day, the Church honors the Blessed, most of them priests, victims in the French capital of the revolutionary government, which wanted to impose the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. It was a law of 1790, in the midst of the French Revolution, which sought to submit the Catholic Church in France to the authority of the State, and to transform the clergy into civil servants. Their aim was to replace the authority of the Pope with that of the State.
The law required the clergy to swear allegiance to the nation and the law, and there were "sworn" priests. But many clergy were persecuted and/or executed for not swearing. Pope Pius VI had condemned the law, which generated a serious diplomatic conflict between the Holy See and France.
Today we commemorate 191 martyrs French who opposed this law. 96 were imprisoned and executed in the Carmelite convent in Paris on September 2, 1792. There were martyrs from the secular clergy, the Franciscan family and other religious institutions.
Beatified in 1905 and 1926
Blessed Peter James Mary Vitalis and 20 companions martyrs - one a deacon and the others secular priests - were executed on the same day. The event took place in the abbey of Saint Germain des Prés in Paris. Pope Pius XI beatified on October 17, 1926, together with other martyrs of the French Revolution.
The Martyrs of Compiègne are commemorated on July 17. They are 16 Discalced Carmelite nuns executed in Paris on that date in 1794, during the same Revolution. St. Pius X beatified them in 1905, and Pope Francis canonized them in 2024.
Liturgy also welcomes todayAmong others, St. Zeno, martyr of Nicomedia (present-day Turkey), St. Antolin of Amiens, patron of Palencia, and Blessed Brocardo, of Carmel. Also the Swedish woman Blessed Ingrid Elofsdotter, who at the end of her life professed as a Dominican nun in Skänninge (Sweden).
