PREPARING TO APPLY NEW METHODS IN AIX

In dealing with the tensions between the young Father de Mazenod and some of the priests of Aix, I do not wish to give the impression that these priests were evil men. They were victims of their situations in a Church turned upside down by the Revolution and trying to find a sense of survival. Priests had been killed or had escaped to other countries. Those who stayed either accommodated with the system or went into hiding. Seminaries were closed and there was no opportunity for ongoing formation. Now in the post-revolutionary world many were old, tired and fixed in their traditional ways and felt threatened by the younger priests who had new ideas for regenerating the local church’s pastoral methods and goals. They were also pained by the reality that many people found the new approaches more attractive.

Writing to his mother, when he was a seminarian in St Sulpice, Eugene gives a taste of the new methods he was learning so that he could implement them in Aix after his priestly ordination:

I will not be able to write to you as much as I would like, as tomorrow I take on a new job that will involve a lot of work. At St. Sulpice we have six or seven catechism classes, which are going wonderfully well and are really admirable in the way they are set up. It is not acceptable, in these catechism classes, to teach the children just to memorize and repeat; tireless efforts are made through instructions to inculcate in them the spirit of religion, and care is taken in these instructions to prepare the children to be active participants.

This is an excellent method, in the first place for the children who are obliged to reflect and discover proper answers out of their own heads, to say nothing of the other benefits they get from it. It is also very useful for the catechists as it prepares them to give homely instructions on all aspects of religion…

Children have to be attracted in all sorts of ways. I will have in my catechism class a large number of big boys who have not yet made their first communion. Taking them on does not constitute a problem for me, as with God’s help we will not do such a bad job. Clearly they have to make their first communion, but it is still more necessary that they do it well…

I am all the more glad to be involved in this type of work, which has enjoyed every kind of success in the period of more than 150 years it has been in operation, as I want to familiarize myself thoroughly with its modes of procedure, statutes, etc., so as to set it up at Aix where the catechetical classes could not be worse and in consequence of this failure one does not see a single child persevering after first communion, while here it is quite the opposite.

Letter to his mother, 4 February 1809, O.W. XIV n.44