Blessed Basil Moreau

Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau, C.S.C. (February 11, 1799 – January 20, 1873) was the French priest who founded the Congregation of Holy Cross from which two additional congregations were founded, namely the Marianites of Holy Cross and the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Moreau was beatified on September 15, 2007 in Le Mans, France. Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau was born on February 11, 1799, in Laigné-en-Belin, a small village near Le Mans, the ninth of fourteen children of Louis and Louise Pioger Moreau. His father was a farmer and a wine merchant. He grew up in the midst of the turmoil of the French Revolution. As his parents were devout Catholics involved in the underground Church, the aspect of the Revolution that most affected him was the suppression of the Church. Moreau was able to receive a good primary education by the generosity of his parish priest Abbé Julian Le Provost who tutored him. In 1814 Provost made arrangements for Moreau to enter the minor seminary at Chateau Gontier (today the Lycée Victor-Hugo ). In 1816 Moreau entered the diocesan seminary in Le Mans (located at St. Vincent's Abbey, today the Lycée Bellevue), when the hostilities of the Revolution toward the Church had subsided. The seminary was run by the Society of Saint-Sulpice and schooled him in the French school of spirituality which remained an inspiration in his preaching and writings all his life. At the age of 22, in 1821, Moreau was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Le Mans at the Old Visitation Convent Chapel of the Sacred Heart, while the Cathedral of St. Julien in Le Mans was under restoration. After ordination Moreau spent two more years with the Sulpicians in Paris, first at the Seminary of St. Sulpice and then at the Suplician Solitude at Issy. In 1823, Moreau became professor of philosophy at the minor seminary of Tessé (today the Museum of Tessé in Le Mans). Then in 1825 he taught at St Vincent Seminary and later became the vice-rector and spiritual director.