Father Claude Bernard (December 23, 1588 – March 23, 1641) was a French

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest who was active in ministry to prisoners and criminals, especially those condemned to death. Known as "le pauvre prêtre" ("the poor priest"), he is primarily remembered as the popularizer of the ''

Memorare Memorare ("Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary") is a Catholic prayer seeking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It first appears as part of a longer 15th-century prayer, "Ad sanctitatis tuae pedes, dulcissima Virgo Maria." Memorare ...

'', over 200,000 copies of which he distributed by leaflets printed in various languages.

Life

Claude Bernard was born at Dijon 23 December 1588. His father was a distinguished lawyer, and filled successively offices of honour and responsibility. Young Bernard was educated at the Jesuit College of Dole and was remarked for his brilliant imagination and wit. Pierre Le Camus, Bishop of Belley, urged him to enter the priesthood, but he declined, saying that he preferred the life of a poor gentleman to that of a poor priest. Shortly afterwards he went to Paris as a protégé of M. de Bellegarde, Governor of Bourgogne. For a while the social life of the capital attracted him; gradually, however, some disappointments together with the death of an intimate friend who was killed in a duel, brought about a decided change in his mode of life and led up to his entrance into the priesthood. By one account, he had a dream of his late father warning him against the worldliness to which he was addicted."Is St. Bernard the author of the Memorare?", ''American Ecclesiastical Review'', Vol.XX, January 1899
/ref> He was ordained by the above-mentioned Bishop Le Camus and invited to his first Mass the poor of the city, distributing to them all his possessions, and, later on, an inheritance of 400,000 livres, or about eighty thousand dollars.
Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 21 Sept. 2015 The poor, the sick and the prisoners were his special care. Wealthy and distinguished persons sought his company, and contributed to his charities. He was friends with

Jean-Jacques Olier Jean-Jacques Olier, S.S. (20 September 1608 – 2 April 1657) was a French Catholic priest and the founder of the Sulpicians. He also helped to establish the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, which organized the settlement of a new town ca ...

and

Vincent de Paul Vincent de Paul, CM (24 April 1581 – 27 September 1660), commonly known as Saint Vincent de Paul, was an Occitan French Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor. In 1622, Vincent was appointed as chaplain to the galleys. ...

. He founded at Paris, for the education of the poor candidates for the priesthood, the seminary of Trent-Trois. He contributed much to popularize the beautiful prayer to the Blessed Virgin known as the Memorare, and claimed in a letter to Queen

Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (; ; born Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643 by marriage to King Louis XIII. She was also Queen of Navarre until the kingdom's annexation into the French crown ...

, wife of King

Louis XIII of France Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. ...

, that he had himself been miraculously cured of illness through

intercession Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of prayer, praying on behalf of others, or Intercession of saints, asking a saint in heaven to pray on behalf of oneself or for others. The Apostle Paul's exhortation to Saint Timothy, Timothy speci ...

of the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

as a result of his reciting the prayer. Father Bernard died in Paris, 23 March 1641. He was the subject of a 1913 biography in French, ''Claude Bernard dit le pauvre prêtre'' by Commandeur de Broqua, who was the

postulator A postulator is the person who guides a cause for beatification or canonization through the judicial processes required by the Catholic Church. The qualifications, role and function of the postulator are spelled out in the ''Norms to be Observed i ...

for the cause of Fr. Bernard's

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christianity, Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon ca ...

References

1588 births 1641 deaths Clergy from Dijon 17th-century French Roman Catholic priests {{RC-clergy-stub