The conflicts with some of the priests of Aix began in 1816, once the Missionaries of Provence had been established and they opened their church for public worship as from April 1816. As a church belonging to a community it was exempt from parish boundaries, and the local clergy had no control over it. It is easy to understand how a community of young priests, filled with the zeal of their beginnings, began to attract people to the Church of the Mission. Daily Mass, morning prayers, evening prayers and instructional sermon, regular confession, forty-hour devotions, retreats in preparation for the major feasts, centre for the Association of the Sacred Heart, and a successful youth ministry were attractive ingredients. It is also easy to understand how the surrounding parish priests were unhappy to see members of their flock go elsewhere for services. Opposition was inevitable.
Not only is hell to be stormed but we must defend ourselves against jealously and all other mean passions which agitate certain priests, pitiable though they are since they are judged by the public in a manner quite mortifying for them.
Letter to Forbin Janson, July-August, 1816, O.W. VI n. 13
In the face of opposition, it is Eugene’s confidence that he is doing God’s will and God’s work that gives him the courage to continue doing good with a clear conscience
It is so difficult to detach myself from here where my presence still seems necessary, because you will scarcely believe that, having only good in view, I will say more, really doing good with God’s grace, I must nevertheless struggle against a continuous persecution on the part of a certain number of priests whose efforts are however rendered ineffective by the position in which it has pleased God to place me;
I pretend to ignore their underhanded dealings and, strictly speaking, I defend myself only by my good bearing and by the continuation of all that the good Lord wants me to do in spite of them. It seems to me that the saints would do the same in my place and my whole ambition will be to try to be like them; I do their works while waiting to acquire a small share of their virtues.
We believed to have recognized that the Lord is protecting us by the very abundant blessings that he is showering on what we are undertaking for his glory. That more than compensates us for all the pain that these false prophets would like to inflict on us, all the while pretending to be unconcerned.
Letter to M. Duclaux, 21 April 1817, O.W. XIII n.5