ST Peter Chanel was a French Marist missionary, martyred on the Island of Wallis and Futuna in 1841. He is remembered for his witness to the faith by the Church today.
Peter Chanel was born on July 12, 1803 in Cuet, France.
As a boy his piety and intelligence attracted attention and he was put into a Church-sponsored education program after which he began training in the seminary and was ordained in 1827.
In 1831 Peter joined the Marists, who were entrusted with the evangelisation of Oceania.
Fr Peter served as a professor at the seminary of Belley for five years and in 1836 was made the superior of a band of Marist missionaries headed for the South West Pacific.
They set out on December 24, 1836, accompanied by Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier who was to become the first bishop of New Zealand.
Fr Peter was sent to the islands of Futuna and Wallis.
On arrival, he found that war between rival tribes and the practice of cannibalism had reduced the islands’ population to a few thousand and those that remained were engrossed in a religion that involved the worship of terror, offered to evil deities.
Fr Peter laboured faithfully, learning the language, attending the sick, baptising the dying, and winning from all around him the reputation of one with a kind heart.
Fr Peter’s message of kindness and display of unconditional love in the work with the locals was initially well-received by the King Niuliki, however resentment grew.
King Niuliki believed Christianity threatened his rights as high priest and stealing the natives from the idol deities.
At daybreak on April 28, 1841, Peter was beaten and tortured by the King’s favoured warrior Musumusu and a group of chiefs, who had hatched their own plan to put an end to his influence.
Fr Peter eventually died from a fatal axe wound to the head.
His body was taken back to France and Rome via New Zealand and Australia, where it rested at Villa Maria in Sydney for two weeks.
Fr Peter was declared a martyr and beatified in 1889.
Pope Pius XII canonised him in 1954. Within a few years of St Peter Chanel’s death, most of the island of Futuna had converted to Catholicism.
St Peter Chanel exemplifies a life of the Spirit’s gifts of courage and fruit of kindness required of all people, but especially young priests.
St Peter Chanel, Pacific witness to the faith unto death – pray for us.
