One Massachusetts diocese is turning to St. John Vianney.
In what local Church officials think is a first of its kind, about 70 priests and five seminarians of the Diocese of Fall River consecrated themselves this week to the Curé d’Ars, as the patron saint of parish priests is widely known.
Vianney (1786-1859), whose 100th anniversary of his canonization is this year, overcame poverty, persecution, conscription, opposition from his father, and learning difficulties to become a priest — only to be sent to a remote village in southeastern France where most people didn’t know much about the faith and didn’t much care about it, either.
He famously converted his lackluster parish through prayer, fasting, penance, preaching, conversation and holiness of life during 41 years of ministry. At first unable to get many people to come to church or go to confession, he eventually had a full church on Sundays and heard confessions for up to 16 hours a day from people all over France.
When it comes to bolstering his diocese, Fall River Bishop Edgar da Cunha thinks Vianney is the man for the job.
“Everything of his life, his ministry, goes with what we are doing. So it fits perfectly because he came into a parish that was dying and he turned it all around and he transformed the parish and the town and the people,” Bishop da Cunha told the Register.
“We are facing some of the similar difficulties that he faced, but he never gave up. He never let them stop him from working harder to make the impact and to bring people to God,” Bishop da Cunha said.
Why Consecrate?
The formal declaration at St. John Neumann Church in East Freetown on Aug. 4, the saint’s feast day, included active and retired priests of the diocese and members of religious congregations who serve there.
It’s part of a diocesan initiative called “Stronger Priests, Stronger Parishes, Stronger Church,” a three-year program meant to help priests become holier, healthier and happier, and thus be more effective in helping bring their parishioners to God.
The idea for the consecration came from a layman: Matt Robinson, 33, a married former seminarian who serves as the diocese’s director of clergy support.
“Was there ever a greater example than St. John Vianney?” Robinson told the Register.
“He literally loved that place back to life, as Christ did,” Robinson said. “And so I just think our bishop really understands this is a critical piece in not only strengthening our priests, but also this is a legitimate model of how priestly holiness is connected to parish renewal. And we cannot talk about parish renewal if we’re not also talking about priestly holiness and strong, healthy priests.”
While anyone can ask the intercession of any saint at any time, the Fall River priests’ act of consecration is at a different level.
“Consecration is a form of entrustment that goes beyond merely asking for God’s or a saint’s help and prayers. It’s an act of belonging, a lasting commitment, what Pope Benedict XVI used to call essentially a transfer of ownership by which someone gives himself in permanent openness to the intercessor’s guidance,” Msgr. Roger Landry, national director of The Pontifical Mission Societies USA and a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, wrote in a column last month in The Anchor, the diocesan newspaper he oversees as executive editor.
Leading up to the feast day, priests of the diocese were invited to participate in a novena. For each of nine days, the priests were sent by email a short written spiritual reflection on St. John Vianney and a short video talk on a particular theme of his life delivered by one of the priests in the diocese.
Why make an act of consecration together?
One reason is to make sure the priests do it — and that the request doesn’t end as simply what Father Kevin Cook called “a nice suggestion.”
But another reason is that there is power in numbers.
“There’s a sense that we’re in this together, and that we need his help, his intercession as a brother priest,” said Father Cook, 53, who was ordained in 2001 and now serves as pastor of a two-parish collaborative in New Bedford.
Father Cook, the eighth of nine children, recalls his father reading aloud vignettes from the life of St. John Vianney during breakfast after Mass on Sunday mornings. When he thought he might have a calling to the priesthood, he read The Cure d’Ars, a well-known biography of Vianney — then read it again after being ordained and then read it again after becoming a pastor for the first time.
“So he has always been an example for me — this great generosity of heart, this great faith, this great perseverance — of what a priest can be,” Father Cook said. “Obviously, we’re not all going to be exactly like John Vianney, but [he’s] just a great example of how to really try to bring the faith to a place where the faith is not alive.”
The late-afternoon gathering of priests this week included exposition of the Eucharist, a hymn (For All the Saints), evening prayer, a Scripture reading (1 Peter 5:1-4: “… God’s flock is in your midst; give it a shepherd’s care …”), and a talk by Bishop Bruce Lewandowski, a Redemptorist who leads the nearby Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, according to a 21-page program provided to the Register.
Most of the priests dressed informally, anticipating a cookout that took place after the service.
Bishop da Cunha began a formula of consecration by asking the priests to “entrust your priesthood anew to the care and intercession of St. John Vianney, that you may imitate his zeal for souls and his love for Christ.”
Then the priests knelt and said of Vianney that they “humbly consecrate” their priesthood to his “patronage, care, and Spiritual Fatherhood,” and that they entrust to Vianney “our lives, our ministry, and the souls entrusted to us.”
They asked for Vianney’s intercession with God to give them “hearts like yours: meek and humble, fervent in prayer, tireless in the confessional, devoted to the Holy Eucharist, and filled with personal charity.”
The confessional is what most Catholics think of when they think about St. John Vianney.
“To be able to hear confessions that many hours a day, you have to be a tremendous listener; and that’s one of the qualities that he had, that he was very strong in listening to people,” said Father John Kelleher, pastor of St. Pius X parish in South Yarmouth.
“It’s one of the gifts that a priest has to have. You can’t go through life as a priest without being a good listener,” Father Kelleher told the Register. “Not only to the people of your parish, but also to God: listening to God in prayer.”
Strength for Priests Who Need It
The staffing problems among Fall River’s clergy look familiar for those aware of the long-term decline of Catholicism in the United States.
About half of the diocese’s 60 active priests have more than one full-time assignment: either multiple churches or multiple roles. While many of the diocese’s 44 retired priests help out, as they age they can’t be relied on indefinitely.
Even with a recent uptick in new seminarians — five accepted this year, which is more than double the number in recent years — the priest shortage is likely to become more acute, since during the next several years about twice as many priests are expected to retire as the number of priests expected to be ordained.
Bishop da Cunha told the Register he pursued the “Stronger Priests” program because he saw that morale was low among priests in his diocese, many of whom are overworked, frustrated by indifference among Catholics, and scarred by the clergy sex-abuse crisis in the United States during the past couple of decades and by public cases in the diocese in recent years of priests accused of financial and sexual impropriety.
About half the diocese’s priests report at least one symptom of ministry burnout, “and our priests are also contracting chronic illnesses in middle age at twice the rate of the general population,” Bishop da Cunha wrote in a pastoral letter published in December 2024.
“So we sense that they needed something that would bring life and energy and enthusiasm and joy and holiness to their lives,” Bishop da Cunha told the Register.
Fall River’s “Stronger Priests” initiative includes trying to reduce the workload of priests by closing some urban churches and eventually training deacons to take over some of the administrative duties of parishes that remain open.
The diocese is creating “fraternity teams,” akin to small prayer groups for priests. The bishop is asking priests to undergo an annual wellness check with a health professional, paid for by the diocese.
An online app may soon allow diocesan priests to make requests for emergency coverage with a few clicks.
Transforming a Parish by Transforming Yourself
While the practical steps are tangible, the primary emphasis in on spiritual reinvigoration: reigniting the excitement that most parish priests felt when they were just beginning their ministry.
For that, St. John Vianney provides both an inspiration and a challenge.
Some see Vianney as an impossible model. He went days without eating, slept on floor boards, and in his early years as a village priest scourged himself with a homemade whip, according to his biographer, Abbé Francis Trochu, in his 1925 book The Cure d’Ars.
But some parts of his story are more relatable, including his difficulties with Latin and the four times he tried to leave Ars because he was fed up with his assignment.
“We’ve all had days like that,” said Father David Frederici, rector of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in Fall River and the vicar general of the diocese.
He told the Register he sees aspects of Ars from two centuries ago in the present-day Diocese of Fall River, which includes the South Coast of Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands.
He called Massachusetts in 2025 “ground zero for secularism.”
“And indifference to the faith, which is even more dangerous than hostility to the faith. But there is a hostility there as well,” said Father Frederici, 53, who was ordained in 2001. “So I think we find a lot of similarities between the situation we face and the situation he faced in his time.”
Fall River officials are reaching far afield for help. They have contacted Catholic hospitals and nursing homes in the diocese and every religious congregation in the country, asking them to pray for the “Stronger Priests” initiative in Fall River, Robinson told the Register.
During the consecration service Monday, Bishop da Cunha read aloud an English translation of a letter from Bishop Pascal Roland, the bishop of Belley-Ars, the diocese in France where Vianney labored. The French bishop called on Fall River priests to allow the example of Vianney to “renew your hope.”
“Observe how the holiness of the Curé of Ars revived faith in a de-Christianized world that strongly resembled our own,” Bishop Belley wrote.
Father Frederici told the Register he has read The Cure d’Ars more often than he can remember.
“It’s just not reading about someone else’s heroism, but the very same graces that enabled him to do that — that led to such a great conversion in his own life — is also available to me, is at work today,” Father Frederici said. “And the same grace at work that transformed Ars is available here in Fall River, or on the Cape, or wherever we are.”
Massachusetts manages to be both one of the most Catholic states in the country and missionary territory, because so many children and grandchildren of longtime practicing Catholics have drifted away from the Church.
Father Greg Mathias, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Mansfield, told the Register that of four funeral Masses he recently celebrated, three of the congregations “had no idea how to respond to the responses at Mass.”
That makes St. John Vianney a helpful model, if only for his patience.
“He’s an impressive figure, especially from the standpoint of not having that much in the way of natural capabilities. Intellectually, he had difficulties, and circumstantially in his life, he bumped into many different problems. And yet he was a vehicle for God’s grace in a very powerful way,” Father Mathias said.
“I think he’s the image of God taking our weakness and making a strength out of it.”