Michel Garicoïts (15 April 1797 – 14 May 1863) was a French Basque Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram.

We are too poor") but his maternal grandmother Catherine Etchéverry knew a parish priest and convinced him to enroll him at school for studies before he became a seminarian.

[2] He attended school at Saint-Palais where he studied Latin and French in the candlelight late into the night while paid his expenses through working for priests and in the local bishop's kitchen – the cook there had a disliking for him for unknown reasons.

[4] In 1833 the diocesan bishop ceased education for seminarians in that place for unknown reasons and he was left to care for that Marian shrine and its pilgrims.

It dawned on him to begin his own religious congregation for all priests and professed brothers and dedicated it to the Sacred Heart as a means of evangelizing to people through missions.

Before he founded it he attended a month retreat with the Jesuits in 1832 for guidance and his spiritual director Father Le Blanc helped to guide him along the right path.

Pope Benedict XV confirmed that the late priest had lived a model life of heroic virtue and named him as Venerable on 10 December 1916 as a result.