Solomon Leclercq

After his arrest, Brother Solomon was transferred to the former Carmes convent, in the current sixth arrondissement of Paris, which had been transformed into a prison for ecclesiastics who refused the oath. There, he shared the captivity of bishops, secular priests, and religious who, like him, had refused to adhere to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. On September 2, 1792, as revolutionary agitation reached its peak in Paris, armed men invaded the convent and massacred the prisoners, striking them with sabers and pikes in the garden and the buildings of the site. Brother Solomon perished that day among approximately one hundred and ninety victims of what history has remembered as the September Massacres. As the first Brother of the Christian Schools to experience martyrdom, he was massacred not for a crime, but because of his refusal to renounce his faith and his religious commitment. His death, which occurred in the context of revolutionary religious persecution, was soon regarded as an exemplary testimony of fidelity to Christ and the Church, and his name remained attached to the memory of the "martyrs of the Carmes."

Brother Solomon's reputation for holiness rests less on extraordinary deeds than on the consistency of a consecrated life, lived in the humble service of teaching and the administration of his Institute. From his youth, he manifested a clear desire for detachment: "I am not made to live in the world; the sight of all the sins committed there disturbs the serenity of my soul," he wrote in a letter from his youth. This aspiration for interiority was combined, throughout his religious career, with a keen sense of duty and fidelity to the commitments made. During the months of hiding and captivity, his correspondence reveals a soul strengthened by prayer, accepting the trial with confidence and even thanksgiving. Several sources report that he considered himself unworthy to suffer for Christ, comparing his own situation to that of other confessors of the faith who were more severely tested. This climate of inner peace, joined to his unwavering refusal to take an oath he deemed contrary to his conscience, constituted the spiritual foundation of his martyrdom and established the Church's conviction that he died as an authentic witness of the faith.

The cause of the martyrs of the Carmes was introduced by a diocesan process opened in Paris on March 21, 1901. On October 17, 1926, Pope Pius XI beatified a group of 191 martyrs of September 1792—including bishops, secular priests, religious, and laypeople—among whom was Brother Solomon, the first Brother of the Christian Schools to be raised to the honors of the altar. The canonization was based on a miracle attributed to his intercession: in 2007, in Venezuela, a young girl of about five years old, María Alejandra Hernández, bitten by a venomous snake and whom doctors deemed lost or threatened with amputation, made a complete recovery after prayers were offered to Brother Solomon. The Archdiocese of Caracas recognized the extraordinary nature of this healing in 2011, and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree in the spring of 2016. Pope Francis canonized Brother Solomon Leclercq on October 16, 2016, in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, during a celebration that raised seven new saints. His liturgical feast is set for September 2, the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Brother Solomon Leclercq occupies a unique place in the history of the Brothers of the Christian Schools: he was their first martyr, their first beatified member, and their first saint. As such, his figure is particularly venerated within the Lasallian family, which today brings together educators, religious, and laypeople present on all five continents; his canonization in 2016 was welcomed as an encouragement to fidelity in the teaching and religious vocation. His name is associated with the group of the Martyrs of the Carmes, whose memory remains attached to the former Parisian convent that has become a place of remembrance, where several of the victims of September 1792 are honored. Beyond the Lasallian school networks that claim his example, Brother Solomon is proposed as a model to Christians confronted with the pressure of conformism and persecution, due to his serene refusal of an oath contrary to his conscience. His martyrdom, which occurred in the heart of the revolutionary turmoil, testifies to the possibility of remaining faithful to one's faith to the end, without hatred or violence, in inner peace.