Sunday 30th October 2011
For immediate release:
The heart of St John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, is to be brought to the Diocese of Shrewsbury next summer.
The three intentions of the four-day visit of the relic of the Cure of Ars in early July 2012 are to provide an occasion of prayer for the renewal of the ministerial priesthood in the diocese, to inspire new and generous vocations, and to spur the renewal of the missions and life of all parishes in the diocese.
The relic will be accompanied by the Rt Rev. Guy Bagnard, Bishop of Belley-Ars, France, and two priests of his diocese, and will be taken to a number of locations to provide opportunities for its veneration by priests and laity and as an invitation to prayer. A programme will be announced at a later date.
The visit is being arranged following a request by the Rt Rev. Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, to Bishop Bagnard (both pictured) when they met in September during a visit of the young Shrewsbury clergy to Ars, where three seminarians for the Shrewsbury Diocese are also in training. Bishop Bagnard later wrote to Bishop Davies to confirm that it would be possible to transport the heart of the saint to England.
Bishop Davies said: “I am delighted we can welcome this relic of St John Vianney to England. The Scriptures speak of the saints as those ‘witnesses’ who encourage us in our faith. This visible reminder of the heart of a simple and extraordinary pastor will encourage us to look to that love and truth found at the heart of the Catholic priesthood, for St John Vianney said simply: ‘The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.’
“This will be an invitation for everyone to pray for the renewal of the ministerial priesthood in our time, a renewed sense of mission in our parishes and for new and generous vocations for the future.”
Notes to Editors:
St John Mary Baptist Vianney was canonised in 1925 by Pope Pius XI who four years later also made him the principal patron saint of parochial clergy around the world.
This was in recognition of the outstanding holiness of the French parish priest who, until his death on 4th August 1859, had served for 40 years in the small town of Ars-en-Dombes and who even in his own lifetime was regarded by many as a saint.
St John was born in Dardilly, near Lyons, on 8th May 1786 and grew up on his father’s farm. From childhood he was conscious of a vocation to the priesthood but it was not until he was 20 that he was allowed to leave his work at the family home to study at a presbytery school in the nearby village of Ecully.
In 1809 he was conscripted into Napoleon’s army, however, but deserted the following year as he was about to be deployed to Spain to fight in the Peninsular War against Spain, Portugal and Britain. An amnesty for defaulters declared by the Emperor in 1810 enabled him to return home a free man.
St John returned to his studies but he struggled with Latin and some academic subjects. His tutors saw, however, that his keen grasp of moral theology was deeply informed by his own exemplary life of virtue and austerity, with one describing him as “the most unlearned but the most devout of seminarian in Lyon”. He was accepted for the priesthood and was ordained in August 1815, some two months after the Battle of Waterloo.
In 1817 he took up his post in Ars, then a village of just 230 people. There, he exhorted the villagers to abandon their lives of petty vice and religious indifference and to seek holiness instead. He also opened parochial missions, a school and a shelter for orphans and abandoned children.
St John’s reputation for holiness spread and pilgrims from all over France travelled to Ars so he could hear their confessions. Between 1830 and 1845 there was an average of 300 visitors a day, with the saint spent 11 or 12 hours in the confessional during the winter months and 16 hours a day in summer. In the final year of his life 100,000 pilgrims visited him.
St John was invested with immeasurable spiritual gifts, including healing, prophesy, and an ability to “read souls”, whereby he exhibited a supernatural understanding of people’s lives and circumstances without having previously met them.
When he received the final sacraments of the Church, at the age of 73, he was joined by no less than 20 priests. A total of 300 priests and 6,000 faithful attended his funeral. His feast day is celebrated on August 8th.
In honour of the 150th anniversary of St John’s death Pope Benedict XVI opened a Year for Priests that ran from the feast of the Sacred Heart on 16th June 2009 to the following summer.
The saint’s heart was taken to the Vatican for the opening ceremony and carried in procession through St Peter’s Basilica.
During the event, Pope Benedict paused to pray before heart, encased in a glass and gold reliquary. The Holy Father said that the heart was “burning with divine love” which priests needed to imitate if they were to be effective ministers.
The Diocese of Shrewsbury covers the parts of Merseyside south of the River Mersey, the southern parts of Greater Manchester, parts of Derbyshire, almost all of the county of Cheshire and all of Shropshire.