St. Gabriel Taurin Dufresse
Sep 14
Missionary to China
Gabriel Taurin Dufresse, of Lezoux, France, was ordained a priest of the Society for Foreign Missions of Paris at the age of twenty-four.
In 1776 he arrived in China to undertake his missionary labors in the country's Szechwan Province. The renewed persecution of Chinese Christians in 1784 led to Father Dufresse's arrest. He soon escaped from prison and was taken in by a Chinese Catholic family.
In obedience to his religious superior, Fr. Dufresse subsequently surrendered himself to the pagan authorities after an auxiliary bishop instructed all the priests staying with families to turn themselves in rather than expose their hosts to the danger of arrest. Father Dufresse was imprisoned and then exiled to Macao.