Blaise Marmoiton: the epic journey of a missionary to New Caledonia (d. 1847)

Summary:

Blaise Marmoiton was born in 1812 into a modest, religious family from Auvergne, in central France. We can't say that a particular significant event  in his youth can explain the boy's missionary vocation. With little schooling and employed from his early years in domestic and agricultural tasks, he was a completely typical young man from the countryside. Blaise was pious, like his parents and many of his friends, but this is a common sociological trait during the Bourbon Restoration era. He never had an adolescent rebellion crisis or questioned his religious upbringing. His peers saw him as a self-effacing and reserved person. In reality, Blaise was a great contemplative, and from childhood to the grave his faith remained unshakeable.

When Blaise was fifteen or sixteen, his parents and the priest were surprised to see that he had become an assiduous reader of the lives of saints, liturgical books and accounts of explorers even though he had only a basic religious instruction. Occasionally, the young man read publications generally intended for the clergy, in particular the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, a magazine founded in Lyon in 1822 by an association (the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, founded the same year by Bl. Pauline Jaricot), whose title until 1825 was: News from the Missions. It is likely that the young Blaise discovered the distant mission lands through this publication. Made up of correspondence from bishops all over the world and missionaries' reports, this periodical was intended to make readers aware of the importance of faraway missions, and to inform them of the work accomplished far from France itself.

The time period was favourable for missions in remote parts of the world. In 1836, Pope Gregory XVI set about establishing the first missions in Oceania, where Catholicism was not yet implanted. The landing of the English captain James Cook in 1774 on the north-east coast of an unexplored Melanesian island, which he named New Caledonia, had done nothing to change the religious beliefs of the local populations.

Missionary fervor drove young Blaise to look for a way to respond to God's call. But the task was difficult for a young villager from rural France without connections or qualifications. During the winter of 1841-1842, God send him providential help. At that time, a young bricklayer named John Taragnat confided to him that he too wanted to become a missionary. The two young people became close friends, and went together to pray at the shrine of Notre-Dame-du-Port, in Clermont-Ferrand (France, Puy-de-Dôme).

A third man was to play a key role in the destiny of the two young men: Abbé Guillaume Douarre (1810-1853), parish priest of Yssac-la-Tourette, near Riom, where Blaise was born. He, too, was eager to set off for distant horizons to spread the Good News. It was under his guidance that Blaise and John (soon joined by three other friends) began to draw up plans for maritime expeditions.

The time was right. In 1841, Saint Peter Chanel became the first Catholic martyr in Oceania (in Futuna Island). His death did nothing to dampen the spirits of the young people from Auvergne, but convinced them of the need to evangelize this part of the world as quickly as possible. Saint Peter Chanel belonged to the Marists, a congregation founded by Marcellin Champagnat for education and evangelization, particularly aimed at cultures indifferent or hostile to Christ. In 1836, Pope Gregory XVI, the architect of the missions in Oceania, had just approved the existence of the Marists. Blaise and his friends had found the perfect institutional framework. On March 11, 1842, the group entered the novitiate of the Society of Mary in Lyon. Their future work was set in motion.

The following summer, the leaders of the congregation were looking for a coadjutor bishop for Bishop. Bataillon, who had been appointed Vicar Apostolic of the archipelagos of North West Oceania. There were not many candidates, and sending a missionary to Oceania for many years was not a matter to be taken lightly. After prayers and consultations, Father Douarre was chosen. He accepted and was appointed bishop in partibus of Amata, in New Caledonia. One of his first decisions was to take with him the five young brothers from Auvergne, including Blaise Marmoiton, who realized then that God had heard his prayer.

On December 24, 1843, the ship Le Bucéphale docked at Mahamate, on Grande Terre, New Caledonia's largest and principal island. The following day, the missionaries celebrated the first mass on the beach where the ship had docked. "The new life I am about to begin, whatever it may be, will not be very extraordinary", Bishop Douarre wrote in his diary. But Providence decided otherwise. Blaise and his companions had landed in a place then indifferent to the Christian faith, although there were already Protestant missions in the neighbouring islands (Isle of Pines, Saint-Vincent, Yaté). But on Grande Terre, the Marists were alone:the Bucéphale left on January 21, 1844, leaving the five brothers and Bishop Douarre by themselves. They would not see another boat for eight months, until September 1845!

The work that these men accomplished in just a few months is staggering: they established close contacts with the native populations, from whom they learned the rudiments of the local language; they obtained some arable land; they developed food crops, and traded with the Kanaks, who generally welcomed the Marists.Overtime, the missionaries - led by Blaise - gained followers, eventually creating a group of "fervent Christians" , including chiefs or chiefs' sons. The Marists built several chapels and carried out evangelization campaigns throughout the island. Cohabitation and a degree of understanding seemed to have been established.

But opposition soon arose. The Kanaks wanted to maintain some of their traditions, such as nudity and polygamy. Brother Blaise and Bishop Douarre entered into deep discussions with them. In the summer of 1847, a terrible drought broke out in the northern region of Grande Terre. Crops were devastated and many animals perished. Famine set in. Bishop Douarre decided to move the mission to the south of the island, where the drought was less severe.

Blaise and his companions began intensive discussions with the Kanaks about the move. The Marists began to transport the meagre food supplies stored at the mission (barely enough for half a dozen men). The Kanaks did not understand why the missionaries were "deserting" them. Tempers flared and the situation escalated. Human bonds could not withstand this tense situation. A movement of rebellion roared: some angry native set trees on fire and warring cries resonated near the mission. 

New missionaries came to join the New Caledonia mission. Unfortunately their arrival with a considerable quantity of supplies triggered an attack on the Mission Station.

On July 18, 1847, one of the Kanak chiefs arrived at the mission with a dozen men: he told the Marists that they had to stay until the famine had ended, in order to continue feeding his people. Bishop Douarre refused, explaining that if the religious stayed, they would all die. This explanation did not convince the Kanak chief, who then ordered his men to set fire to the mission and seize what food remained. At this point, Brother Blaise was guarding the small store. Shortly before, he had trained a stray dog to keep away any prowlers. The attackers killed the dog first. Then they seized Blaise, beat him and stabbed him several times. At this point, he prayed not for himself but for his attackers. Dragged outside, they decapitated him. Brother Blaise was martyred at the age of 35 and became the second martyr of Oceania. 

Among the 192 Kanaks whom Bishop Douarre had baptized and was happy to remember as he lay dying in April 1853 was the murderer of Brother Blaise.

A Marist priest had previously written this comment about Blaise Marmoiton: "He is one of those men about whom people don't remember much". But with God, everything is possible! The Catholic Church introduced the cause of Blaise's beatification in 1919, and the Holy See's decree on the validity of the informative and apostolic process was promulgated on April 21, 1964.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Brother Blaise's epic journey, which is already exceptional on a spiritual level, is just as exceptional on a psychological level, due to extreme survival conditions, discomforts, solitude, natural dangers, malnutrition, epidemics, etc.

Going further:

V. Courant, Le martyr de la Nouvelle-Calédonie : Blaise Marmoiton, frère coadjuteur de la Société de Marie, Paris, E. Vitte, 1931.

More information:

• Claude Rozier, La Nouvelle-Calédonie ancienne, Paris, Fayard, 1990.
• Georges Delbos, L'Église catholique en Nouvelle-Calédonie, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1993.
• Radio program, "The Ave Maria Hour," a presentation of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. Episode on Br. Blaise Marmoiton.