The Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious order that founded and operates Hoban, is now one step closer to being able to call its founder St. Basil Moreau.

In a Sept. 15 Mass, celebrated in his birthplace of Le Mans, France, Father Moreau was beatified. Dr. Mary Anne Beiting and Brother Ken Haders, principal and president of Hoban, were both present at the beatification celebration.

Beatification is the next-to-last stage in the canonization, or sainthood process, and requires proof of one posthumous miracle. Moreau’s miracle was the 1948 curing of a Canadian woman’s lung disease. However, the newly Blessed Basil Moreau’s remarkable works began long before this miraculous event.

In 1799, Basil Moreau was born in post-Revolutionary France. At the time of Moreau’s birth, the Catholic Church was heavily persecuted.

Mass was illegal, and priests who did not renounce their loyalties to the Pope were targeted. However, after Napoleon announced the Concordat of 1801, the French government no longer criminalized Catholicism.

In this more tolerant environment, Moreau, encouraged by his religious family, pursued the priesthood. He was ordained at the age of 22 and began work in a diocesan church.

One of Moreau’s mentors, Father Jacques Dujarié, was so impressed by him that Dujarié asked Moreau to take responsibility for the Brothers of St. Joseph, a group that Dujarié had founded but was now growing too frail to manage. Under Moreau’s leadership, an order of priests, several orders of religious sisters and the Brothers of St. Joseph grew into the Congregation of Holy Cross.

The three branches of priests, brothers and sisters were modeled after the triad of the Holy Family, an example of holy unity that Moreau held in great reverence.

Moreau was superior general of the Congregation until 1866, when he resigned due to congregational infighting over financial and management issues.

Surprisingly, Father Edward Sorin, the University of Notre Dame’s founder and one of Father Moreau’s former students, was among those who called for Father Moreau’s resignation.

Afterwards, the majority of the Congregation forgot about Moreau. Admirably, the Marianites of Holy Cross, one of the orders of religious sisters in the Congregation of Holy Cross, remained loyal to him and cared for him on his deathbed in 1873.

His Congregation thrived long after his death and is devoted to active service and education. Its members often work in schools, hospitals or other social service capacities in 18 countries.

Each of these countries had representatives at the beatification celebrations held in LeMans. The celebrations spanned three days and four Masses. At the beatification Mass, celebrated by Bishop Jacques Faivre of Le Mans, the papal representative Cardinal José Saraiva Martins announced Father Moreau’s new status as Blessed.

Beiting and Haders were among those in attendance in LeMans along with representatives from 18 countries.

They enjoyed not only elaborate and delicious French dinners while there but also the company and community of their companions.

Beiting was deeply impressed by the contemporary Holy Cross members she encountered and by the spirit and legacy of the first members of the Congregation. For example, the first Holy Cross international missions often met with death and failure, yet members of Holy Cross were still willing to undertake later missions to the same places.

“I was impressed by just how much had happened ... because these people were able to say yes and to trust [in Divine Providence],” said Beiting, who also said she felt a renewed commitment to Blessed Basil Moreau’s Holy Cross mission after her experience in Le Mans.

Haders and Beiting shared pictures of their experience with the student body at the opening school Mass Sept. 19.

“It put into perspective how big of an event this was and how important Moreau was in our history,” senior Andy Veverka said.

If Moreau is eventually canonized, his feast day will be Jan. 20, the anniversary of his death, as is Catholic tradition. His possible canonization would represent the culmination of many years of consideration of his cause for sainthood, which began in 1961 when documents testifying to Moreau’s virtue were submitted to the Congregation for the Cause of Saints.

The Vatican II reforms took the greater part of the Vatican’s attention, however, and Moreau was not declared Venerable until 2003.

The miracle that led to his beatification was officially recognized in 2006, and involved a 28-year-old woman who became ill after she gave birth to a stillborn, premature baby. After Holy Cross sisters prayed for the woman, and a relic of Moreau’s was placed on her body, she made a complete and unexplainable recovery.

There have been reports of another miracle connected with Moreau—which could be the second required for sainthood.

At the beatification ceremonies, the question among the Congregation did not seem to be if Father Moreau would be canonized, but when. Either Blessed Basil Moreau or Blessed André Besset, who built the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal, may shortly become the first Holy Cross saint.