Saint John Mary Vianney

Priest, Patron of Parish Priests
(1786–1859)

Saint John Mary Vianney, known throughout the world as the Curé d'Ars, was born on May 8, 1786, at Dardilly near Lyons, the fourth of six children of a peasant farming family. His childhood was spent working in the fields, and his education was meagre and interrupted by the upheavals of the French Revolution. He had a deep love for prayer and for the Blessed Virgin Mary from his earliest years, and his desire to become a priest remained firm despite every obstacle.

His path to ordination was extraordinarily difficult. He had little aptitude for academic learning, and his Latin was so poor that he twice failed his seminary examinations. His spiritual director, Canon Balley, taught him privately for years and eventually vouched for his virtue and pastoral instincts. He was ordained in 1815, and in 1818 he was assigned to the remote and neglected village of Ars-en-Dombes, a parish that had been spiritually desolate for decades.

What followed over the next forty-one years was one of the most remarkable pastoral transformations in the history of the Church. By prayer, fasting, preaching, and above all by the gift of counsel he exercised in the confessional, Vianney gradually changed the spiritual face of an entire village and then drew pilgrims from across France and eventually from across the world. In his last years he spent sixteen to eighteen hours a day in the confessional, and pilgrims waited for days to make their confession to him. He is said to have read souls with supernatural insight.

He lived in extreme poverty and subjected himself to severe penances, sleeping only a few hours a night and eating almost nothing. He experienced powerful diabolical assaults for years, which he bore with humour and patience. He died on August 4, 1859. He was canonised in 1925 and declared patron of parish priests by Pope Pius XI. His feast is celebrated on August 4th.