Venerable Léon Clergue

François-Léon Clergue (23 December 1825 – 8 February 1907) – in religion Marie-Antoine de Lavaur – was a French Roman Catholic priest and professed member from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He became a popular priest who attracted large crowds when he would preach; he preached around 700 itinerant missions in southern France which would earn him a nickname as the "Apostle of the South". He is also credited with the development of pilgrimages to the shrine in Lourdes where he often visited to preach and to tend to the visiting pilgrims. He was a traditionalist who railed against secularist influences and remained in France in 1880 when religious orders (including his own) were expelled to other European nations; he remained in his deserted convent earning him respect from the authorities who refused to expel him due to his popular rapport with the locals. His death saw around 50,000 people attend his funeral and his remains were deemed to be incorrupt in late 1935 upon their exhumation. The beatification process launched in Toulouse in the late 1920s and he became titled as a Servant of God. The cause later was stalled in the late 1960s and remained as such until 2005 when an organization was founded to relaunch the cause. The official relaunch came in 2008 and culminated in 2020 when Pope Francis signed a decree that named him as Venerable upon confirmation that he led a life of heroic virtue. François-Léon Clergue was born in Lavaur on 23 December 1825 as the first of three children to Jean-Louis-François-Frédéric Clergue (1798–1872) and Rose Amilhau (1797–1867); his baptism was celebrated moments after his birth in the names "François-Auguste-Léon. His father – a devout law clerk – consecrated him to the Blessed Mother following his birth. His mother later earned the nickname "La Vendéenne" in 1830 after the riots when she grabbed the revolution's flag from some adolescents parading it around the streets.