St John Vianney
Patron of Priests
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 parish priests.
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 in France 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 but deserted the
following year as he was about to be
deployed to Spain.
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 seminarians 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-en- Dombes, 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 to meet him from all over
France so he could hear their
confessions.
Between 1830 and 1845 there was
an average of 300 visitors a day, with
the saint spending 11 or 12 hours in the
confessional during the winter months
and up to 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.
He died on Aug. 4, 1859, at the age of 73
and was canonized in 1925. Pope Pius X
proposed St. John Vianney as a model
for parish priests in 1929.
When his body was exhumed in 1904 as
part of the process of canonization it
was found to be incorrupt, meaning that
his remains did not show signs of
typical decay despite not being
artificially preserved.
His body rests above the altar
at the basilica in the village in which he
was a Priest.
His heart is enclosed in a gold reliquary
that is normally kept in a separate
building called the Shrine of the Curé’s
Heart.
The relic of St John Vianney visited our
diocese at the beginning of July it
travelled to various Churches in the
Diocese and also to the Metropolitan
Cathedral in Liverpool.
Rt Rev. Mark Davies, the Bishop of
Shrewsbury, said that he hoped the
presence of the relic would present a
“moment of grace” for the Diocese of
Shrewsbury.
To celebrate the relic of St John being
in our Diocese, Bishop Mark is giving
every student in all the Catholic
schools in our Diocese a bookmark
asking us to pray for vocations to the
priesthood.
During your time of reflection in
Academic Review you are invited to
pray the following prayer together:
Loving Father, give us priests today
who share in the same work as Jesus
the Good Shepherd, so that they like
St John Vianney, may show us the
way to heaven and life with you
forever. Amen
St John Plessington
Pray for us