Maurice Tornay

Maurice Tornay, CRSA (31 August 1910 – 11 August 1949) was a Swiss Catholic priest of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine – of the Hospitallers of Saint Nicholas and Grand-St-Bernard of Mont Joux branch – who served as part of the missions in China and Tibet.

He fought against anti-Catholic religious persecution in independent Tibet and was ambushed and murdered by Tibetan Buddhist monks of the Karma Kagyu sect from the Karma Gon Monastery while he travelled to Lhasa disguised as a pilgrim to appeal directly to the Dalai Lama for religious toleration to be granted to the Catholic Church in Tibet.

He was beatified on 16 May 1993 after Pope John Paul II confirmed that the late priest had been killed "in odium fidei" ('out of hatred of the faith').

Life Maurice Tornay was born in Valais in Switzerland on 31 August 1910 as the seventh of eight children to Jean-Joseph Tornay and Faustine Rossier. the Blessed's birthplace, to celebrate a local mass in his memory.

In 2021, a new chapel and a space recalling his life were dedicated to him inside the church of Orsières.