Who was Camille Costa de Beauregard, this Frenchman who will be beatified in 2025 in Chambéry?

Born in 1841 in Chambéry, Savoie, Camille Costa de Beauregard grew up in the castle of La Motte-Servolex. His father, Marquis Pantaléon Costa de Breauregard, senior parliamentarian in Turin, Italy, man of letters, art and sciences, was also invested locally as president of the Academy of Savoy. Her mother, Marthe, raised Camille in the comfort of her rank and the rigor of Christian teachings.

As a child, he took part, with his eight brothers and sisters, in his parents' various charitable actions. Schooled in a Christian school then with the Jesuits, at the age of 16 he contracted typhoid and found himself forced to continue his education at home. His convalescence was long, but the young man was supported by a renowned tutor, Father Chenal. At the age of 22, in 1863, he brilliantly completed his studies and went to Italy to enter the French seminary in Rome.

The father of orphans

Ordained a priest three years later, he chose to return to live in his hometown. in 1867, he was appointed fourth vicar of Chambéry Cathedral. Humble and sensitive to the plight of the most deprived, he works to help the workers. The same year, cholera affected the region, leaving many orphans, victims of the epidemic, homeless. In 1868, he founded the Bocage orphanage to accommodate around a hundred children.

Helped in his work by Father Chenal, he was inspired by the Salesian pedagogy of the Italian priest Don Bosco whom he met in Rome. It thus provides its residents with an education which is rooted in the Christian faith and which is based on trust. This educational model is much less strict than the one that dominated at the time.

When Camille Costa de Beauregard died in 1910, her nephew took over the management of the establishment. Today, the Bocage still exists in the form of a childhood home and an agricultural high school under the supervision of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

A miraculous cure

The year Camille Costa de Beauregard died, a young man from Bocage suffered a serious eye injury. While he risks losing the use of it, a nurse bandages the wound with a cloth that belonged to the Chambéry priest and asks for his intercession. The boy recovered miraculously, without any after-effects.

A long beatification process

Following this fact, the cause for beatification of Camille Costa de Beauregard was presented for the first time in Rome in 1925. John Paul II declared him venerable in 1991. In 2012, documents were gathered to support the veracity of the miracle by a committee including in particular the Bishop of Chambéry, Mgr Philippe Ballot. Eleven years later, in 2023, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints recognized the scientifically inexplicable nature of the healing and decided favorably, in 2024, for the beatification of Camille Costa de Beauregard. An opinion that the Pope immediately decided to follow by authorizing the promulgation of the decree on March 14.

Beatified in Chambéry

More than one hundred and ten years after his death, Camille Costa de Beauregard will be beatified on May 17, 2025 in the cathedral of Chambéry, where he himself worked during his lifetime. The three dioceses of Savoy announced in a press release that mass would be said at 3 p.m. and invited “all Savoyards to participate in this great event”.

A pilgrimage in his footsteps in Rome

The beatification will take place at the end of a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome, from April 21 to 26, 2025, during which pilgrims will be able to discover the places frequented, at the time, by Camille Costa de Beauregard, during her seminar.