Babad, Father Pierre
1846, January 13
Paris
January 16, 1846
Father and Very Dear in Our Lord:
No Memorial Card is Available
The Society has just lost one of its very distinguished veterans, Father Pierre Babad. Father Babad, born at Font-de-Veyle in the Diocese of Lyon, entered the Seminary of St. Irenaeus at Lyon on October 31, 1782. The charity which he saw as the bond among the directors of that house was the motive that led him to join the Society. It was in 1789 that he was introduced to Father Emery. After a year of Solitude, he was sent to the Seminary of Angers. When the seminary became a detention area on its refusal to take the oath of the Civil Constitution, Father Babad, with many other priests, was interned there; then transferred to the Chateau de Nantes, undergoing many injuries and much ill-treatment; from the chateau he was deported to Spain. When he reached Spain, he was invited by the saintly bishop of Orense to come to his see city with several of his confreres to open there a seminary for the diocese. The influence of the representatives of the French Republic caused that project of the holy bishop to come to naught.
Thereupon Father Babad expressed to Father Emery his desire of going to labor at Baltimore in the United States. Father Emery acceded to his wishes. Father Babad stayed and worked for more than twenty years at Baltimore and Havana, and then returned to Europe in 1823. Father Duclaux assigned him to the Seminary of Rheims, which had just been placed in the charge of the Society. Father Babad’s infirmities soon obliged him to leave that seminary and he was permitted to retire in Lyon at a priests’ home where he has always showed himself pious and patient. He himself asked for the sacraments of the dying, received them with faith, and then remained in great peace and perfect resignation to God until his death which occurred on the 13th of this month. I ask for him the prayers and remembrances of the Society. I am, Father and very dear in Our Lord, very sincerely
Your thoroughly devoted servant,