Pierre Cholenec

[2] After four years more of theology study in Paris at Collège de Clermont,[3] Cholenec departed for Canada in August 1674.

Only a couple years into his missionary work, Cholenec was positioned as a high ranking Jesuit as a "professed father.

[1] For many years, Cholenec was stationed among the Praying Iroquois at St. Francis Xavier du Sault, a Jesuit mission village also known as Kahnawake, located south of Montreal along the St. Lawrence River.

Cholenec brought European self-torture devices to Kahnawake, such as whips and iron belts, in order to regulate the rituals.

[3] Cholenec wrote multiple letters regarding the Iroquois Mission at St. Francis Xavier du Sault, which are found in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents.

Following the death of Kateri Tekakwitha in April 1680, another Jesuit Missionary Claude Chauchetiere, and eventually Cholenec, came to believe she was a saint.

An excerpt from Cholenec reads: “This face, so marked and swarthy, suddenly changed about a quarter of an hour after her death, and became in a moment so beautiful and so white that I observed it immediately (for I was praying beside her) and cried out.

I admit openly that the first thought that came to me was that Catherine at that moment might have entered into heaven, reflecting in her chaste body a small ray of the glory of which her soul had taken possession.”[3]There was a disagreement between Cholenec and Chauchetiere regarding the location Tekakwitha was to be buried.

[3] Not long after Tekakwitha's passing, Cholenec declared her "the most fervent" and wrote about a light that surrounded her when she engaged in mortification of the flesh.

"[3] With regards to Cholenec's biographical accounts about Tekakwitha, not only did he write of her self mortification, the extraordinary events surrounding her death, the miracles that occurred in her name, but also her decision not to marry.