St. Rene Goupil

Rene Goupil was born at Anjou, France in 1606. He entered the Society of Jesus at Paris, but an illness which made him deaf prevented him from taking his vows. He became a surgeon and volunteered to be a donné (lay volunteer) for the Jesuit missions in North America. In 1640 he worked at a hospital in Quebec and then traveled with Father Isaac Jogues on his missions to the Huron. He and Father Jogues were captured by the Iroquois, the enemies of the Huron. They were tortured and held as slaves. Seeing Rene's brave suffering for Christ and knowing that death was looming, Father Jogues accepted Rene's vows as a religious brother in the Society of Jesus. In 1642, two months into their captivity, Rene was tomahawked to death after making the sign of the cross on a child's head, because the Iroquois mistook this for a curse. Rene Goupil was canonized 1930, along with the other Jesuit martyrs of North America, including Isaac Jogues who died at a later date. His feast is October 19.