Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lyons (Fides Service) - Today 23 February the diocese of Lyons in France opens the first session to investigate the life, heroic virtues and saintliness of Fr Louis Joseph Marie Querbes who founded in the earthly 19th century the Clerics of Saint Viator today present in 16 different countries.
Louis Joseph Marie Querbes was born in Lyons in 1793 and ordained a priest in 1816. As a parish priest in a small rural community south of Lyons he suffered to see widespread Christianisation and religious ignorance among the people he thought of starting an association of catechists to give religious instruction to children and other men to help parish priests with animation of the liturgy preparing the hymns, a choir and other tasks. The association called “Clercs paroissiaux ou Catechistes de Saint-Viateur” obtained diocesan approval in 1831 and pontifical approval in 1838. Later the association became a religious congregation, the Clerics of Saint Viator and it spread in France and then also to Canada, United States, Belize, Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Spain, Italy, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Japan and Taiwan. Fr Padre Querbes died in 1859.
Today the spiritual heirs of Fr. Querbes form a religious community of priests and brothers, and associated diocesan priests and lay men and women involved in teaching the Catholic faith and announcing the Gospel to children and poor people in schools, parishes, religious communities and centres of education. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 23/2/2006; Righe 20 - Parole 260)
