Gabriel Taurin Dufresse, of Lezoux, France, was ordained a priest of the Society for Foreign Missions of Paris at the age of twenty-four.
In 1776 he arrived in China to undertake his missionary labors in the country's Szechwan Province. The renewed persecution of Chinese Christians in 1784 led to Father Dufresse's arrest. He soon escaped from prison and was taken in by a Chinese Catholic family.
In obedience to his religious superior, Fr. Dufresse subsequently surrendered himself to the pagan authorities after an auxiliary bishop instructed all the priests staying with families to turn themselves in rather than expose their hosts to the danger of arrest. Father Dufresse was imprisoned and then exiled to Macao.
The resumption of intense anti-Christian persecution in 1805 put Bishop Dufresse in so much danger that he had to change his place of residence almost daily. A decree in 1811 condemned to death all leaders of European religions and in 1815 Dufresse’s identity was discovered.
Sentenced to death by beheading, St. Gabriel Taurin Dufresse earned the crown of martyrdom on September 14, 1815. The saintly bishop’s head was attached to a pole and his body left exposed for three days as a warning to others. This body was later buried by local Christians.
Pope Leo XIII declared him as venerable on 2 July 1899 and beatified him on 27 May 1900. He was Canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.
Written by Tonia Long, August 10, 2021
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