Professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor - Confounder of the Order of the SS. Annunciation
On February 21, 2026, Pope Leo XIV received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints, and authorized the publication of the Decree on the life, virtues and reputation of holiness, as well as on the confirmation of the immemorial cult of the Venerable Servant of God Gabriele Maria Nicolas, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, co-founder of the Order of the SS. Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, born in Riom (France) around 1460 and died in Rodez (France) on August 27, 1532.
The equivalent beatification of Blessed Gabriele Maria Nicolas, decreed by Pope Leo XIV on February 21, 2026, renews the memory of one of the most singular figures of the Order of Friars Minor of the 15th century: highlights his human and spiritual stature, the religious life lived with exemplarity and austerity in the context of Franciscan Observance, the conformity to the Crucified Christ, the Eucharistic and Marian devotion, the fundamental contribution to the foundation of the Order of the Annunciation alongside Saint Joan of Valois, the commitment to social pacification, the leading role in the formation, direction and government of the confreres, as guardian, as Provincial Minister, as General Definer, as Vicar General.
Gilbert Nicolas - who went down in the history of holiness as Gabriel Maria for his great devotion to the Mother of God - was born around 1460 near Riom, in Auvergne, France. In his youth, after listening to a sermon on the Immaculate Conception of Mary, he came to the decision to give up all human love to give himself entirely to God. Welcomed among the Friars Minor of the Observance in the convent of Notre-Dame de Lafond, La Rochelle, he made his religious profession between 1476 and 1478. Having become a priest, for about twenty years he taught moral theology to young confreres in formation.
Around 1490 he became the spiritual guide and confidant of Saint Joan of Valois, the repudiated wife of Louis XII, then canonized by Pius XII in 1950. When from 1499 the project to found a religious order dedicated to the Virgin Mary was outlined in her, Friar Gilbert Nicolas shared the purpose and collaborated without reservation: she recruited and personally trained the first nuns, wrote the Rule and worked for its approval. In the Rule of the Order of SS. Annunciation, the blessed expressed his spirituality and Marian doctrine by proposing the imitation of the evangelical virtues of the Virgin Mary as a form of life for the nuns. Over time, this Rule was also adopted by other Institutes, such as the Marian Clerics founded in Poland by St. Stanislaus Papczyński in 1673, and as the Congregations of Apostolic Annunciations, the first of which was founded in Belgium in the 18th century by the abbot Pierre Jacques de Clerck.
After assuming the positions of Provincial Vicar of Aquitaine in 1502, guardian of Amboise and Provincial Vicar of Burgundy, Fr. Gilbert Nicolas was elected in 1511 Cismontane Vicar General of the Observance. For three years he toured the provinces subject to his government, visited the monasteries of the friars and the Clares with the intention of supporting the spirituality of the Observance. He also committed himself to promoting a movement of Marian devotion for all those who wished to be architects of peace in their condition of life and that resulted in the foundation of two confraternities approved by Leo X and defined by his successor Hadrian VI as an "order of peace".
At the Pentecost of 1514, at the end of the General Chapter of Antwerp, Fr. Gilbert Nicolas became Provincial Vicar of France. During these years he spiritually and canonically supported the Tertiaries of the blessed Margaret of Lorraine, Duchess of Alençon, who operated as hospitals in several cities.
The contribution of the blessed to the history of the Franciscan Order was essential, in particular, his defense of Observance. To this end, he put in place his great theological and canonical knowledge together with his capacity for dialogue and listening.
At Pentecost in 1517, during the General Chapter of the Order, on the occasion of the election of the new Minister General, the blessed collected a certain number of votes. The Cismontane friars therefore elected him their first Commissary-General. It was during this period that Leo X, a great admirer of Fr. Gilbert Nicolas, ordered that the nickname of Gabriele Maria, now prevalent on the name Gilbert, be definitively adopted for him, as evidenced by a certificate by Cardinal Cristoforo da Forlì on June 29, 1518.
In 1521, the Minister General appointed Gabriel Mary a Visitator to the Provinces of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Two years later, in the General Chapter of Burgos, he was elected General Definitor and appointed Visitator of the Provinces of Cologne, Saxony and Thuringia. From the Minister General and Emperor Charles V he received the delicate mission of inquisitor in Germany for the convents of the Franciscan Order. In 1524 he was elected Provincial Minister by his confreres of Provence and, two years later, the General Chapter appointed him commissary of the great convent "des Cordeliers" in Paris.
On his return from the Chapter of Parma in 1529, he fell seriously ill in the convent of Bordeaux. He then redid his spiritual testament destined for his daughters of the Annunziata. Finally healed from that serious illness, he left to visit the houses of the Order, but was again struck by the disease in the convent of Chanteloup. By now seventy years old, his health began to decline.
He got sick once again in Bourges on Christmas Eve of 1531. He again confessed his daughters of the Annunziata and celebrated the three solemn masses of the Nativity. The following year, he preached Lent to them for the last time, then he set off to participate in the Cismontain general congregation planned for Pentecost, in Toulouse. On May 29 he arrived very sick at the Annunziata of Rodez and gave up on continuing the journey. Despite his weakness, he offered his spiritual advice to the young community. On July 26 he celebrated his last mass and then he had to go to bed. He died on August 27, 1532, leaving his daughters and the brothers who surrounded him the example of a holy life, entirely spent for God and the Church.
The study of the Cause has demonstrated the continuous, constant and uninterrupted reputation of holiness and signs and of the cult given to Blessed Gabriele Maria from time immemorial, which began immediately after his death. Of particular importance are the elevatio of his body, promoted by the bishop of Rodes Bernardino da Corneilhan on February 7, 1625, following the numerous acts of veneration; the plenary indulgence granted on October 28, 1647 by Innocent X, and that of seven years granted by the blessed Innocent XI on September 2, 1680, connected to the visit of the church of Annunziate on the commemorative day of the transit and which in the text use the title of "saint" for Gabriele Maria; the Diocesan Information Process for the confirmation of the immemorial worship, celebrated in the diocese of Agen from 1925 to 1927; and finally the Supplementary Diocesan Inquiry celebrated In the diocese of Créteil from 2011 to 2015.