Saint Peter Chanel

Priest and Martyr – optional memorial

Peter Louis Mary Chanel was a priest of the Society of Mary. Sent as a missionary to Polynesia, he had little apparent success in his apostolic work on the island of Futuna, in the Tonga archipelago.

Yet his martyrdom, which took place on this day in 1841, bore abundant fruit: soon after his death, the entire island embraced the Christian faith.

He was canonized in 1954. Saint Peter Chanel is remembered in the liturgical calendar as the protomartyr of Oceania.