Andrew Fournet

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Andrew Fournet (1752-1834) was a priest who helped establish the order of the Daughters of the Cross.

He was born near Poitiers in 1752. He was bored by many things, including religion, as a youth. However, he was later influenced by one of his uncles, a rural minister, and later became a priest himself, and eventually the parish priest of his hometown Maillé.

Upon the arrival of the French Revolution, he refused to take the oath for the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and continued his now illegal ministry in secret. On Good Friday, 1792, he was arrested for his activities. He declined being taken to jail in a carriage, saying since the day Christ carried his cross it behoved his followers to travel on foot. He would escape, at one point taking the place of a dead body on a bier.

He made the acquaintance of Elizabeth Bichier, and collaborated with her in the establishment of her new religious congregation, the Daughters of the Cross. He even drew up the monastic rule the new order would follow. He is said to have miraculously multiplied food for the members of the new order and their charges a number of times.

He retired from his parish duties in 1820, but continued to direct the sisters of the new order until his death in 1834.

[edit] Veneration

He was canonized as a saint in 1933. His feast day is May 13.

[edit] References

Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.