Venerable Maurice Tornay

Maurice Tornay, CRSA (31 August 1910 – 11 August 1949) was a Swiss Catholic priest of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine – of the Hospitallers of Saint Nicholas and Grand-St-Bernard of Mont Joux branch – who served as part of the missions in China and Tibet. He fought against anti-Catholic religious persecution in independent Tibet and was ambushed and murdered by Tibetan Buddhist monks of the Karma Kagyu sect from the Karma Gon Monastery while he travelled to Lhasa disguised as a pilgrim to appeal directly to the Dalai Lama for religious toleration to be granted to the Catholic Church in Tibet. He was beatified on 16 May 1993 after Pope John Paul II confirmed that the late priest had been killed "in odium fidei" ('out of hatred of the faith'). Maurice Tornay was born in Valais in Switzerland on 31 August 1910 as the seventh of eight children to Jean-Joseph Tornay and Faustine Rossier. Two sisters were Josephine and Anna while a brother of his was Louis. He was baptized on 13 September 1910 and made his First Communion in 1917. His childhood saw signs of disposition to a pious life and one based on doing the work of God. On one particular evening his mother told him and his sister Anna of the life of Agnes of Rome. In 1925 he commenced high school at the Abbey of Saint-Maurice d'Agaune and was there until 1931. In his free time he took friends to the chapel where he would read them passages from the works of Francis de Sales and Thérèse of Lisieux's journal. He wrote to a provost to request admittance to the Canons Regular and he was admitted into the novitiate on 25 August 1931. After a team of missionaries left for China in January 1933 he was disappointed that he did not have his chance to go with them. He was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer in January 1934 and had to follow a special diet – he would skip this diet while in the missions; this also prompted an operation and a subsequent period of rest.