Pierre Bretaudeau (known more popularly by the English variant of his name Peter) was born in Poiré-sur-vie in Vendée, France, on January 25, 1931.^[1] He was the third of five siblings and had two sisters and two brothers.

The family was religious and Peter became an altar server. An older sibling followed in their father’s footsteps and became a mechanic but Peter’s calling was to the Church. It led him to the MEP and a 57-year mission in Malaysia.^[2] 

His seminary training began during his secondary school years at the minor seminary of Chavagnes-en-Paillers from 1944 to 1949. He completed another two years of training at the major seminary of Luçon after a time of military service in Algeria and a year of teaching at Amiral Merveilleux college in Vignaux.^[3] 

In 1953, he joined the MEP. From 1954 to 1956, he studied theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. On completing his ecclesiastical studies, he was ordained a priest on April 2, 1956 at the church of Poiré by Monsignor A. Derouineau.^[4] 

His mission to Malaysia began on October 1, 1957. On arrival in Kuala Lumpur, he stayed in the presbytery of St John’s Cathedral under the supervision of Father E. Limat and R. Laurent, the parish priests. He spent his initial time in the country learning the English language with the help of an Irish nun from a nearby convent.^[5] 

A few months later, Father Peter left for the diocese of Salem in India, spending two years under the guidance of Father J.M. Hourmant in the Village of Attur where he learnt the Tamil language.^[6] When he returned to Malaya with his newly acquired Tamil-language skills, he was asked to replace an ailing priest at St Joseph’s in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur where he served for four years as assistant parish priest.^[7] 

During this time, he first experienced working with railway and plantation workers. After his time there, he was appointed as parish priest of the newly opened Our Lady of Fatima Church in Brickfields, which catered mostly to the Tamil-speaking community.^[8]

In 1965, Father Peter took his first sabbatical since arriving in the country. He went to Rome upon the request of the first local bishop of Malaysia, Dominic Vendargon, to join in the last sessions of Vatican II at the end of 1965. He then went back to France for about six months where he gave conferences on his pastoral work in Malaysia. He later spent some time in Indonesia to learn the Malay language.^[9]

When he returned to Malaysia in 1967, he was appointed parish priest of Church of the Visitation in Seremban where he stayed for a decade. He described the parish as “at the time, the most significant parish in the KL Archdiocese”.^[10] This seemed to be where he had the most impact and made a lasting impression on the local Church as he began working with and helping the rubber estate workers and their families. 

A 2021 news article from FMT described his work there: “Thomas Joseph, 88, who accompanied Bretaudeau on his visits to rubber estates in and around Seremban in the late 60s, said the priest worked tirelessly to uplift the lot of estate workers, particularly the Indians.”^[11] Father Peter is said to have collaborated with the National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW) to form an organisation to give the families on these estates a better future. The “Persatuan Kemajuan Rakyat” was created to aid those in poverty and provide education to the workers and their children. Vocational training centres for boys and girls in electronics and tailoring respectively were set up and many of the students would go on to become teachers in the other centres that were later established.^[12] 

He helped not just Catholics but all those in the estate communities. In 2014 when the communities in the Rantau and Siliau estates near Seremban heard of his impending retirement, many requested for him to stay so they could take care of him personally in gratitude for all that he had done for them throughout the years.^[13] 

In 1977, he was posted as parish priest to St John Marie Vianney in Tampin, about 60km from Seremban. For the next decade until 1987, he continued to help plantation workers.^[14] In an interview, he spoke of his time in these two places: “My postings in both Seremban 1967-77 (10 yrs) and in Tampin 1977-87 (10 yrs) were those Glorious Years of my pastoral work and involvements especially in the Estates among the Catholics and the non-Christians as well. I will never forget those moments. I thank God for this great opportunity.”^[15]

Father Peter was also involved in other ecclesiastical training and work. In 1976, he spent three months at the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila where he was accompanied by Father Soter Fernandez (later Cardinal).^[16] During their time there, they formed the “Five Loaves and Two Fishes”, a group of priests and religious who, inspired by the idea of the need for change and renewal within the local parishes, pioneered Aggiornamento 1976, as well as the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs).

The Aggiornamento was a solution to the slow response of local clergy to the reform and renewal of the Church after Vatican II, by gathering clergy to train them in the new ways of being a Church.^[17] BECs were formed for lay people to become more involved with the church and their own faith outside of Sunday mass attendance and priestly regulations and guidance.^[18] These would become two very important changes that helped to shape how the modern Malaysian Catholic church operates today.  

In 1987, Father Peter was assigned as parish priest of St Anthony’s Church in Kuala Lumpur where he oversaw the development of several programmes and buildings. The most prominent of this was the establishment of the “Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre” (APC) that serves as a resource and information centre for continued maintenance of knowledge and future education about the local church for clergy and laity.^[19] 

Father Peter held the first Bahasa Malaysia-language mass in St Anthony’s for Malay- speaking Malaysians, Indonesians, and others who wanted to celebrate the mass in the local language. From then on, the 5pm Mass on Sundays at St Anthony’s was conducted in Malay by priests who spoke the language.^[20] This led to many churches in Malaysia today having at least one Mass during the weekend that was celebrated in the Malay language. 

After 10 years at St Anthony’s Church, Father Peter began to take on less vigorous tasks as age and poor health caught up with him. In 1997, he was transferred to St Jude’s Church in Rawang where he remained until 2001. After suffering from a heart attack in 2001, he spent a few months recuperating in Singapore before returning to Malaysia where he spent time at the Church of the Holy Rosary between 2002 and 2003. He was then transferred to the Church of the Risen Christ for four years.^[21] 

On July 14, 2007, he was awarded the Chevalier Award by the French government for his work in Malaysia.^[22] That same year, Father Peter Bretaudeau retired to Sentul in Kuala Lumpur. He spent another three years in retirement in Kajang from 2011 to 2014.^[23] In retirement, he continued to pay visits to various families to lift up their spirits until he returned to France to live at a home for priests in La-Roche-sur-Yon. He finally moved to a medical home for priests in Les Herbiers where he passed away at the age of 90 on September 2, 2021.^[24] He had served for 57 years in 11 different parishes and was the longest serving as well as the last of the MEP Fathers in Malaysia.