Bl. Josephine Leroux

Josephine Leroux was born in France in about 1747 and professed vows with the Poor Clares at Valenciennes in 1770. In 1794, as the French Revolution raged, she was arrested for living as a religious and condemned to death. At peace with her fate, she sang the Litany of Loreto on the way to the guillotine and calmly kissed the hand of her executioner as she mounted the scaffold. George and Polly’s tribute to this little-known martyr prioritizes spiritual authenticity over historical accuracy; for example, she is dressed as a Poor Clare to reflect her underlying religious identity even though she was living with Ursalines at the time of her arrest, and her idealized visage appears much younger than middle age to highlight her saintly innocence. Nevertheless, the careful details convincingly ground the event depicted in the realm of fact. The result is a richly layered, dynamic portrayal that rescues Josephine’s story from obscurity in the hopes that her outstanding courage and unapologetic piety will inspire today’s Christians in the face of an increasingly militant secularism.