Venerable Pierre-Adrien Toulorge

Pierre-Adrien Toulorge (4 May 1757 – 13 October 1793) was a French Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Premonstratensians and was killed during the French Revolution - he also remained in hiding for most of the revolution and celebrated secret Masses and administered the sacraments in secret. Toulorge was beatified on 29 April 2012 after Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that the late priest was killed "in odium fidei" ('in hatred of the faith'). Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the celebration on the pope's behalf in the Coutances Cathedral. Pierre-Adrien Toulorge was born in the Kingdom of France on 4 May 1757 as the third child to Julien Toulorge and Julienne Hamel; his parents married on 9 November 1747. He was baptized mere hours after his birth by the parish curate Le Royer. He had at least one brother and one sister. His mother died on 8 May 1757 (and was buried in a church the next day) and in 1861 his father remarried to the widowed Marie Duprey. His father died on 31 March 1782. The assistant parish priest noticed his aspirations to enter the priesthood and took Toulorge under his wing and instructed him in Latin. He was later sent to school for his initial education. Toulorge was admitted to his studies for the priesthood - that the Eudists oversaw - where his superior was Jacques-François Lefranc. He underwent philosophical studies in 1777 and theological studies from 1778 until 1782. Toulorge received the tonsure and the minor orders on 12 June 1778 while being made a subdeacon on 23 September 1780 and being elevated to the diaconate on 8 May 1871. He was ordained as a priest in June 1782 and was made an assistant curate in Doville at the beginning of 1783. He often went to the Norbertine convent in Blanchelande and asked the prior to be admitted into the Premonstratensians; he commenced his novitiate in Beuport and in June 1788 returned to Blanchelande where he made his profession.