Fr. Francis Bressani: an unknown Canadian Jesuit missionary.

As pointed out in News in Brief (p. 26), the Canadian bishops have issued a pastoral letter celebrating the 350th anniversary of the French Jesuit martyrs who came to Canada to bring Christ to the natives living in the Great Lakes area. Not mentioned in the Letter--because he survived his tortures and therefore was not a martyr--was an Italian Jesuit whose sojourn among the natives is too little known. Editor

There were twenty-seven Jesuit missionaries in Eastern Canada (called New France at that time) between 1625 and 1650. All but one of these were French. The exception was Francis Joseph Bressani. Though the Jesuits also cared for French settlers and some natives other than the Hurons, their main work was among the Hurons, who numbered about 12,000 and who lived in Huronia, not far north of what is today Barrie, Ontario.

Father Bressani was born in Rome, Italy, in 1612. He joined the Jesuits and studied philosophy at the Roman College 1628-30. He then taught Italian literature in Jesuit schools for three years. After this, for four years, he studied theology in Rome and Paris. From 1637 to 1642 he taught philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, and in 1642 was ordained and sent to Canada, which he had for a long while hoped for.

First he was assigned to look after the French in Quebec City and the Algonquins in Trois Rivieres. The Iroquois, a group of five native tribes in what is now New York State, had become quite hostile to the Hurons. In 1644 Father Bressani was sent with a convoy to Huronia, accompanied by six Catholic Hurons and a young French boy. The group was captured by twenty-seven Mohawk Iroquois near modern-day Sorel, Quebec.

The Iroquois immediately killed and scalped one of the Hurons, cut up his flesh, and ate it before the eyes of Father Bressani and his companions. The group were taken to Ossernenon, in what is now New York State, and Father Bressani was tortured from May 15 to June 19. During each day and well into each night he was given little food, deprived of clothing, beaten, cut, and ridiculed. He had to sleep on the wet ground without covering, his hair and beard were torn out, he was made to walk on live coals and to pick them up, he was pierced with sharp sticks, and his hands were frequently burned until only about half of them were left. His toenails were twisted and he was made to eat filth. The most obscene sufferings were not reported in detail. He wrote that, though the sufferings were excruciating, he found in his heart an "inner strength" enabling him to bear the torments.

He had been condemned to be burned alive on June 19th, but instead he was made a slave. Because of the condition of his hands he was not of much use in this capacity, and was sold a month later to some Dutch trappers. He got a ship out of New York and returned to France. He wrote his Superior to tell of what had happened to him, and, at his own request, was back in Canada after seven months in Europe.

When he arrived in Canada he was present as the Iroquois signed a peace treaty with the French. He recognized some of his tormentors among the Iroquois there, but had learned not to hate them but to pray for them. He went to Huronia in 1645; he had not learned the Huron language but the Hurons admired him for what he had undergone. In his famous epic poem Brebeuf and His Brethren, E. J. Pratt wrote:

Bressani ill-equipped to speak the Huron

Has speech more eloquent to capture souls:

It is his scars, his mutilated hands.

"Only show us," the neophytes exclaim,

"The wounds, for they teach better than our tongues

Your faith, for you have come again to face

The dangers. Only thus we know that you

Believe the truth and would have us believe it."

The peace treaty didn't last very long. In March, 1649, St. John Brebeuf and St. Gabriel Lalemant were martyred at the village of St. Ignace. Father Bressani returned to Quebec to get military help, but on his return (without any military help) he met Jesuits and three hundred Hurons leaving Huronia, and returned with them to Quebec. By autumn, 1650, all the Jesuits had returned to Quebec.

Some of them, including Father Bressani who was in poor health, left for Europe. In Italy he was centered in Florence. He wrote a history of the Huron Mission, published in 1653. He became a famous preacher, traveling over much of the country. The fact that he had not only preached the faith in the New World but had also suffered for it added to his natural talents in making a great impression on his hearers. He died in Florence on September 9, 1672.

This great man is almost unknown in Canada, even by students at the Catholic high school named after him in Woodbridge, Ontario.

A biography of Father Bressani was written by Pierluigi Ventura in Italian, and was translated into French by Camillo Menchini (Montreal, 1984). An excellent book, The Holy Martyrs of Canada, by Luigi Pautasso, which gives an account of Father Bressani as well as the eight canonized Jesuit Martyrs, is available from Pal's Books, 135 Willis Road, Woodbridge, ON, L4L 2S4, ph. [phone], fax [phone], for $12.