The Man of the Good Heart

San Pedro Chanel, protomartir de Oceania · Isla de Futuna · 1837-1841

The Society of Mary arrives in the Pacific

On December 24, 1836, the first group of Marist Fathers to the Pacific, under the command of Bishop Jean- Baptiste Pompallier, left France. The whole mission was put under the protection of Mary: the Society of Mary - the Marists - had been canonically approved that same year with the charism of always acting "as the Virgin would." Father Pierre Louis Marie Chanel, a 33-year-old French priest from the Diocese of Belley, was appointed to the island of Futuna, in the archipelago of Wallis and Futuna.

Chanel and brother Marie-Nizier Delorm landed in Futuna on 8 November 1837. King Niuliki welcomed them with courtesy and authorized them to stay. For months, the priest patiently studied the local language until he dominated it. When a cyclone devastated the island on February 2, 1839 and he spent whole weeks caring for sick and dying without distinction, the Futunians baptized him with a name that would be recorded in his collective memory: "the man of the kind heart".

The baptism that unleashed the storm

As the baptizes grew, King Niuliki saw in the gospel a direct threat to his authority as high priest and political leader. The breaking point came when his own son, Meitala, asked for baptism. Niuliki ordered his son-in-law Musumusu to "do what is necessary" to stop the conversions.

On April 28, 1841, Musumusu appeared in the missionary's cabin, faking a wound. As Chanel attended him, a group came in to loot the stay. Musumusu took an axe and hit the priest on the head. Pedro Chanel died that same afternoon, at age 37. According to the witnesses present, his last words were: "It's okay like this."

Oceania pattern

Pedro Chanel was beatified on November 17, 1889 by Leo XIII, and canonized on 12 June 1954 by Pius XII - the same day and year that the Pope canonically crowned Our Lady of Piat in the Philippines. His party, on April 28, is today a national holiday in Wallis and Futuna. The Church will venerate him as protomartir and Oceania pattern: the first of all the martyrs of the immense ocean, sown by missionaries who left, trusting everything to the intercession of Mary.

Saint Peter Chanel, Pacific martyr,
You who lived and died under Mary's cloak,
intercede for the peoples of the great ocean.
Amen.