Raised in a secret Church
The life of St John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, has remained a surpassing example of a priestly ministry given totally to God. Born in 1786, he himself was first inspired by priests whose names posterity has mostly forgotten – the clergy who carried on ministering after the French Revolution outlawed Catholicism. The Church, as he first knew it, was a secret Church: at the Mass for his First Communion, the windows were covered so that no agents if the state could catch them.
