An Extraordinary Priest

(Posted by guest blogger Dr. Matthew Bunson)

Last month, I promised to write about an extraordinary priest who at first look seemed a most unlikely model for other recipient of Holy Orders. Considered unfit for the priesthood even by some of his fellow priests because he was supposedly so unlearned –and because they thought he made them look bad by his long hours in the confessional and his reputation for spiritual guidance – this priest refused every honor offered to him and died humbly in the small parish where he had spent his entire life in ministry. Hardly forgotten, however, he became not only the model for the priests of his diocese and France, he is honored today as a saint and the patron saint of parish priests and was named as the patron for the Year for Priests in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.

I am writing, of course, about St. Jean Baptist Vianney (1786-1859), known also as the Curé of Ars.

He was born at Dardilly, France, into a family of shepherds and grew up during the terrible years of the French Revolution when the practice of the Catholic faith was often prohibited by the secular and atheist regimes in France. The family attended secret Masses, and the heroic example of the priests who put their lives in danger to bring the sacraments to French villages inspired young Jean to follow them into the priesthood.

The problem was, he was twenty by the time his father allowed him to enter the school for seminary preparation; he could barely read or write, and he lacked anything approaching a proper background in learning. And even his hopes of the seminary were crushed by the news in 1809 that he had been drafted into the army of Emperor Napoleon to go fight and kill other Catholics in Spain. Refusing to go to war, Jean deserted and remained in hiding in a small village in the mountains. Only an imperial amnesty in 1810 allowed him to go back to his home and enter the seminary in earnest at Lyons in 1813.

Put simply, Jean was or­dained because of his obvious goodness and not for his academic skills. He struggled in his studies, especially Latin, and it is unlikely that he would have been ordained had it not been for the support and help of Abbé Balley of Ecully who personally intervened on his behalf. After ordination on August 12, 1815, he served as an associate under Abbé Balley. By the time of Balley’s death in 1818, the saintly qualities of Father Vianney were well-known, most so by the bishop of the diocese who assigned him as Curé, or pastor, of Ars.

His new parish had only 230 people and was plagued by religious indifference. Prophetically, the bishop told him, “There is not much love of God in that parish. You will put some there.” Jean possessed a stunning appreciation of the priesthood and the requirement that a priest be an alter Christus, another Christ. With the absolute gift of himself, he transformed the religious and spiritual life of Ars by the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. Gifted with remarkable discernment of the human soul, he reclaimed thousands of lapsed Catholics at a time when France was emerging out of the bleak years of the French Revolution and Napoleon. Soon, thousands flocked to the village to seek his advice and especially to give him their confession. In the winter he spent twelve hours at a time in the confessional, and in the summer he gave sixteen to eighteen hours in the confessional to the throngs of penitent souls. And they kept coming…from across the diocese, France, and then from other countries.

Not surprisingly, other priests in the diocese grew jealous of his fame (even though Jean never sought notoriety). They dug up the fact of his poor exam results in the seminary and organized a petition declaring Jean’s unworthiness to be a priest. When it was presented, the bishop discovered to his great humor that Jean had also signed it. Soon after, some priests claimed that the Curé of Ars was mentally unstable; after all, who on earth spends eighteen hours listening to confessions? The bishop’s reply: he expressed a wish that all of his priests suffered from the same mental illness.

There are many lessons to be learned by this truly remarkable priest, but one of them is that while a man may consider himself painfully unworthy, it is Christ who makes the call to the priesthood. Jean Vianney never lost sight of the glory to which he had been summoned, declaring often, “Oh! How great is the Priesthood! It can be properly understood only in Heaven... if one were to understand it on this earth one would die, not of fright but of love!" (Abbé Monnin, Esprit du Curé d'Ars, p. 113).

Jean Vianney was an unlikely candidate for Holy Orders. But he responded to Christ’s call, and the result was the transformation of Ars and the spiritual enrichment of France and beyond. But what does all of this mean to us today? Pope Benedict XVI answered that very question when he declared:

The pastoral methods of St John Mary Vianney might hardly appear suited to the social and cultural conditions of the present day. Indeed, how could a priest today imitate him in a world so radically changed?...far from reducing the figure of St John Mary Vianney to an example albeit an admirable one of 18-century devotional spirituality, on the contrary one should understand the prophetic power that marked his human and priestly personality that is extremely timely. In post-revolutionary France which was experiencing a sort of "dictatorship of rationalism" that aimed at obliterating from society the very existence of priests and of the Church, he lived first in the years of his youth a heroic secrecy, walking kilometers at night to attend Holy Mass. Then later as a priest Vianney distinguished himself by an unusual and fruitful pastoral creativity, geared to showing that the then prevalent rationalism was in fact far from satisfying authentic human needs, hence definitively unlivable. (General Audience, August 5, 2009.)

Next month, I will write about an experience I recently had in the Alleghenies and how it is connected to a Russian prince and the first priest to receive all of his orders in the United States.

A blessed Advent to everyone!