Thailand / France: French missionary Monseigneur François Pallu (1660)

Born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, Pallu was recruited by Alexander de Rhodes as a secular clergy volunteer, assigned to become a missionary in Asia. In 1658 Mgr Pallu became Bishop of Heliopolis, Vicar apostolic of Tonkin, Laos, and five provinces of southwest China.

After considerable difficulties and several years delay, Pallu co-founded in 1665-66 the general seminary in Ayutthaya, Siam. From 1667 to 1673 Pallu was in France, where he published an account of the French missions in Southeast Asia. He returned to Siam in 1673.

In 1674, Mgr Pallu was sailing to his archdiocese in Tonkin, but met with a storm and had to land in Manila. He was imprisoned by the Spanish and put on a ship to Acapulco and from there to Spain to be judged. He was finally freed through the intervention of Pope Innocent XI and Louis XIV. After this involuntary trip around the world, he was only able to return to Siam in July 1682.

In 1684, Pallu arrived in China, where he took charge of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Fuzhou. He died in the same year in Muyang, Jiangsu.

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