The Year for Priests - 2009-2010

St Jean Marie Vianney was born in 1786 near Lyons and thus the first part of his life was overshadowed by the horrors of the French Revolution. After difficult years of study – he was never considered to be particularly intelligent – Jean Marie was ordained a priest on 13 August 1815. In 1818 he was appointed Parish Priest of the remote hamlet of Ars. He was to remain at Ars for the rest of his priestly life during which he became renowned for the spiritual guidance he was able to give the thousands of people who came to his church attracted by the holiness of his life. His dedication to the salvation of the souls that had been entrusted to him, particularly through his ministry in the Confessional, was heroic.

Jean Marie Vianney had a gentle and cheerful nature combined with a notably ascetic manner of life and extraordinary supernatural gifts of insight into the souls of those whom he was directing. He was called to his heavenly reward on 4th August 1859 and was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925, his feast day being the 4th August.

Already St Jean Marie Vianney is honoured as the Patron Saint of Parish Priests and during this Year for Priests Pope Benedict XVI intends to declare him Patron Saint of all priests, once again proposing the saint’s life as a model of priestly service, an inspired response to the faithfulness of Christ that should be reflected in the faithfulness of priests.

After a series of imprisonments for ministering as a Catholic priest, Southworth was apprehended for the final time and sent to be tried at the Old Bailey in 1654. Although encouraged to do so, he would not deny that he was a Catholic priest. Passing the inevitable sentence of death it is said that Serjant Steel, who read out the sentence, wept bitterly.

On 28 June 1654 Southworth was dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn where he was to be hung, drawn and quartered. Unusually Southworth was allowed to wear his vestments at the place of execution and, the executioner having pity for him, he was allowed to hang to death, rather than having to endure the yet more terrible ordeal of being quartered whilst still alive. His last recorded words which he spoke from the gallows were, "My faith and obedience to my superiors is all the treason charged against me; nay, I die for Christ’s law, which no human law, by whomsoever made, ought to withstand or contradict . . . To follow His holy doctrine and imitate His holy death, I willingly suffer at present; this gallows I look upon as His Cross, which I gladly take to follow my Dear Saviour . . . I plead not for myself . . . but for you poor persecuted Catholics whom I leave behind me."

When John Southworth was beatified in 1929 (he was canonized in 1970) his relics were enshrined in the Chapel of St. George & the English Martyrs in Westminster Cathedral, the parish where once he laboured for the Lord.