Anatole de Bengy

Who they were

Anatole de Bengy was born at Bourges on 19 September 1824 and entered the Society of Jesus. He served as chaplain to French soldiers in the Crimean War and again in the Franco-Prussian War, serving the sick and wounded in the siege of Paris.

On 3 April 1871 the Commune's National Guards arrested the Jesuits of Sainte-Geneviève school as hostages. He cheered his companions through the days of expected death, and was killed in Paris on 26 May 1871.

The miracles

His cause is open as a martyr of the Paris Commune.

Why that counted as sanctity

A Jesuit army chaplain killed as a hostage of the Paris Commune.