Laurentin, René: - Monsignor René Laurentin was a French priest and theologian who authored over 150 books. Born in Paris in 1917, he began university studies in 1934 simultaneously at the Catholic University of Paris and at the Sorbonne. He graduated with degrees from each in 1938. In 1940, serving as an officer in the French army, he was captured by the Germans in Belgium. After liberation and his return to France he was ordained to the sacred priesthood on December 8th, 1946. As an expert in Mariology he was a member of the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II's constitution on the Church. He became well known to French readers, as he authored several in-depth biographies and studies of modern-day saints, such as Bernadette of Lourdes, Catherine Labouré, and Thérèse of Lisieux. In 1981 the Vatican authorized him to carry out a study of French mystic and war heroine Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit, whose Cause had been introduced after her death in 1951. Earlier, in 1960, after exaggerated and speculative articles in the French tabloid press, the Vatican had placed a moratorium on all publishing regarding Yvonne-Aimee. The lifting of that ban in 1981 was specifically and solely for the research and eventual biography by Laurentin, who went on to author several studies of Yvonne-Aimée: her untiring and lifelong charitable works, her stigmata, her recorded cases of bilocation. Pope Benedict XVI created Laurentin a Prelate of Honor of His Holiness in 2007. He died in 2017, a month short of his 100th birthday.