A new link has been added to the chain of murders that is bloodying the Catholic Church, particularly in France. In Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, in Vendée, on August 9, 2021, a religious priest, Fr. Olivier Maire, was killed by a Rwandan asylum seeker, whom he was hosting in his home and whose needy situation he had taken to heart. The victim, 60 years old, was ordained priest in 1990 after studying biology, belonged to the Montfortian Congregation.
Maire was known for his dedication to the underprivileged and for his generosity. A student of theology at the Centre Sèvres in Paris, he had a diploma in psychology from the Gregorian University in Rome. A scholar of the history of the Montfortian missionaries, he had worked on a thesis on the founder of the Congregation, St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, who had distinguished himself by living with the poor and who demanded that his followers never close their doors and hearts to the needy.
Sent to Uganda, Fr. Maire was master of novices and took charge of the formation of young priests. He also devoted himself to the prisoners in the youth prison and to those suffering from AIDS. When he returned to Europe, he became assistant to the Superior General of the Montfortians in Rome and, finally, provincial of the Congregation in France, in the Vendée, the symbolic heart of French Catholicism, where Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre is considered “the holy city.” In fact, during the French Revolution, seven Montfortian religious had been killed in the house Fr Maire lived in.
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