Bl. Jean Marie du Lau

Jean-Marie du Lau was born in 1738 at Biras in Périgord, France, into an aristocratic family. He studied in Paris and became Archbishop of Arles in 1775.

In 1789 he was elected to the Estates-General for the clergy. He defended the Church's freedom against the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the revolutionary law that put the Church under state control and required priests to take an oath to it.

In August 1792 he was arrested in Paris and held in the former Carmelite convent with many priests who had refused the oath. On September 2, 1792, during the September Massacres, he was killed there with many priests and religious. They were beatified in 1926.

Jean Marie du Lau was beatified in 1926.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.