Jean-Claude Colin

Jean-Claude Colin, SM (7 August 1790 – 15 November 1875) was a French priest who became the founder of the Society of Mary (Marists).

Jean-Claude, born on 7 August 1790 at the hamlet of Barbery, in the Beaujolais region of central France, the son of Jacques Colin and his wife Marie Gonnet, who had married in 1771.

He was the eighth of a total of nine children: Claudine, Jean, Mariette, Sébastien, Jeanne-Marie, Pierre, Anne-Marie (who died at birth), Jean-Claude and Joseph. Jean-Claude’s eldest sister Claudine stood as his godmother, and his brother Jean as his godfather, hence the baby’s name Jean-Claude. The parents owned and cultivated a piece of land, and during the winter turned to weaving.

The regime installed by the French Revolution introduced a piece of legislation known as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which caused a split into the Church in France, dividing those priests who accepted the Constitution from those who remained faithful to Rome. Jean-Claude’s parents supported the clergy loyal to Rome. An order of arrest was issued against Jacques Colin for his open support of the local parish priest, Benoît-Marie Cabuchet, who had opposed the Constitution and was consequently hunted by the revolutionary authorities.

Jacques had go into hiding for a year. His house was boarded up and all his goods were sold off.

In 1795 Marie Colin died, aged 37. Jacques Colin died not quite three weeks later, leaving the children orphaned. Jean-Claude, not yet five years old, was taken into the care of his father's brother, Sébastien, who lived in the area at Saint-Bonnet-le-Troncy.

Sébastien was a bachelor. To cope with the children he employed a housekeeper, Marie Echallier, to look after them. She was a deeply religious woman, but her version of religion was gloomy and guilt-ridden. In these years Jean-Claude developed a tendency to scruples which gave him much trouble, but which was in later life to make him sensitive to people struggling with similar difficulties.

When he reached the age of fourteen, Jean-Claude, accompanied by his elder brother Pierre, entered the minor seminary of Saint-Jodard, a kind of secondary school for boys preparing for priesthood. Jean-Claude's hopes were for a ministry as a priest where he could live a life of quiet prayer. The disciplined seminary lifestyle, obedience and piety came easily to him.