Gilles Bouhours

Gilles Bouhours (27 November 1944 – 26 February 1960) was a Marian visionary.

He is known above all because on 1 May 1950 Gilles Bouhours reported to Pius XII a presumed message that the Virgin Mary would have ordered him to communicate to the pope on the dogma of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary. It is said that Pius XII asked God, during the Holy Year of 1950, for a sign that could reassure him that the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was actually wanted by God and when Gilles communicated the message to Pius XII, the pope considered this message the hoped-for sign. Six months after the private audience granted to Gilles by the pope, Pius XII himself proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of body and soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven.

Early life
Gilles was born on 27 November 1944, into a family from the Mayenne department. His father was called Gabriel Bouhours, born in 1913, a plumber and his mother Madeleine, born in 1911, was a housewife, from whom five children were born, and Gilles was the third-born.

At the age of nine months he was diagnosed with meningoencephalitis (meningitis with encephalitis), a disease which was often fatal at the time, because there were no truly effective medicines and treatments to combat this disease. For this reason, a nun of the Little Sister of the Poor, who was a family friend, gave Gilles' parents two images of saints with relics to place under little Gilles' pillow; one was a holy card with a relic of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), and the other image was of a missionary. Three nights passed without any improvement in the child. On the fourth night, the parents found Gilles healed, with normal breathing and without the fever.

The beginning of the apparitions
In 1947, the Bouhours family lived in Arcachon, France. Little Gilles was two years old and looked like a normal child, completely similar to his other peers. On 30 September 1947 Gilles claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary, which was later followed by many others. In one of these visions Gilles reported that the Virgin Mary would ask him to go to Espis, north of Moissac (France) in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne in the diocese of Montauban. In this place there were three children - and soon after a 40-year-old man - who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in 1946. These alleged seers were immediately investigated by the Diocese. On 12 December 1946, the local bishop, Mons. Pierre-Marie Théas, disclosed in a private letter his opinion concerning the alleged apparitions of the three children and the forty-year-old, deeming them not worthy of faith and therefore deeming the apparitions not true. It should be remembered that this private judgment by bishop Théas concerned exclusively the alleged seers of Espis and not Gilles, who was not the subject of the investigation, but he will soon be involved in the affair and associated with the alleged seers.

Subsequently, six months later, on 4 May 1947, the bishop promulgated his negative judgment official, threatening to suspend "a divinis" any priest who celebrated Mass in Espis. During this period, Gilles reports, the Blessed Virgin Mary confirmed to Gilles that he had to observe the bishop's decision by not participating in any mass that was celebrated in Espis.

Here too it should be remembered that the official sentence of the local bishop against the 4 alleged visionaries of Espis dated back to 4 May 1947, while Gilles himself did not visit Espis until 13 October that year, therefore the bishop's decision on the authenticity of the alleged apparitions, did not in any way concern the apparitions of Gilles.

When Monsignor Théas left the diocese, Monsignor Louis de Courrèges d'Ustou [fr] took over and, on 1 February 1950, set up a new commission to evaluate the 4 alleged visionaries. His conclusions were that the visions were nothing more than autosuggestions and hallucinations, excluding any supernatural origin. Although Gilles had not been counted among the alleged seers of Espis affected by the decree of the local bishop, he was nonetheless involved in the affair. Such accusations will greatly prevent Gilles from obtaining a private audience with Pius XII.

The message reserved for Pius XII
On 13 December 1948 Gilles reported that the Blessed Virgin Mary had confided to him a secret reserved for the Pope.

After repeated requests from the Blessed Virgin Mary, as Gilles reported, as well as insistence from Gilles himself, a first trip to Rome was finally organized, despite the economic difficulties relating to the cost of the trip, not being a rich family. Only Gilles and his father participated in this trip.

On 12 December 1949 Gilles and his father were able to meet Pope Pius XII in a non-private audience and therefore the child did not reveal the secret to the Pope, because the Blessed Virgin Mary had instructed him to let this message be known only to the Pope. Not being able to convey the message to Pius XII, Gilles was disappointed by what happened, but he still wanted to covey the message privately to Pius XII.

A second trip is thus organised, but it was initially blocked due to the receipt of a letter denying the possibility for Gilles of being able to obtain a second audience with the pope, due to the sentences by the local Bishops against the 4 alleged visionaries of Espis, sentences which improperly they were also extended to little Gilles, given that Gilles was not named by these decrees. After various vicissitudes Gilles and his father finally managed to go to Rome at the end of April, and on 1 May 1950 Pope Pius XII received Gilles in a private audience. Once the message was sent to Pius XII, Gilles now was free to convey the message to other people as well. The message consisted of this: "The Blessed Virgin Mary did not die; she ascended to heaven with her body and soul." The event of the private visit of a 5-year-old boy with the pope did not go unnoticed, and on 10 June 1950 a journalist (Gaetano Fabiani) from the "Giornale d'Italia" published a long article (which also mentioned Gilles' secret) entitled "Un bambino francese di 5 anni ha parlato col Papa" ("A 5-year-old French boy spoke to the Pope"). After Gilles' private meeting with the Pope, other articles also appeared in various newspapers, which described the meeting held between Gilles and the Pope as the case of little Gilles. Now, Gilles' phrase was a fairly simple and brief expression, but nevertheless it was considered, according to various well-informed sources, as the sign that Pope Pius XII had requested and expected from God, to confirm the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption. Having obtained the required sign, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 6 months later (on 1 November 1950).

After the fulfillment of Gilles' mission, in transmitting the message to the Pope, from 1950 to 1958 Gilles declared that he was still visited at regular intervals by the Blessed Virgin. On 15 August 1958, according to Gilles, the Virgin appeared to him for the last time.

He died on 26 February 1960, at the age of 15, after a short 48-hour illness. Some doctors asserted that the death was caused by a crisis of uremia, while others believed that it was asthma; indeed there was never a sure explanation of the reasons that caused the death of little Gilles.

The diocesan commission of inquiry for the beatification process
A diocesan commission of inquiry has been wanted in 2014 by Msgr. Robert Le Gall, archbishop of Toulouse, in view of the possible future beatification of Gilles Bouhours.