Biography
Noël Chabanel
About Noël Chabanel
Born in France in 1613, Chabanel entered the Society of Jesus and taught before his missionary assignment to New France. Jesuits Global describes him as a professor and humanist who nevertheless sought mission work. He arrived in Canada in 1643 and served among the Hurons. His language difficulties and aversion to unfamiliar conditions made the work painful, but his superiors permitted him to return to France and he chose to stay. The account of his private vow comes through later Jesuit tradition and is not treated here as a verbatim contemporaneous record.The 2004 Roman Martyrology places Chabanel’s death in Ontario in 1649 and commemorates him on December 8. It says he had vowed to remain in his mission and was killed by an apostate companion while traveling through the forest. Jesuits Global also recounts his death in the mission region. The exact manner of his death is presented as the church’s martyrological account.
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