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The new youthfulness of itinerant priests

From full-time itinerancy to short-term team missions, priests find new ways to reach God’s people

La Croix International

Published March 12, 2020.

What if the vocation of the diocesan priest was not to be the "head of the parish", assigned to one place and serving the Catholics who come him, especially for the sacraments?

Caught between increasingly vast territories and a desire to be closer the people, many priests in France are finding a new lease on life through a less fixed ministry. 

They move from village to village – on foot, by car or even by caravan – to encourage far-flung communities. And, in doing so, they are sometimes "surprised by God".

Parish means ‘sojourning in a foreign land’

There are different definitions of the term "itinerant priest".

Some are detached from any pastoral responsibilities at all. That’s been the case since 2015 in Ariège in the southwest region of Occitanie.  

These priests do full-time itinerant ministry for their dioceses. Among other things, they help out their confreres in parishes who tell them where "there are people to go and see".

Other priests opt for short periods of itinerant ministry, especially during the summer. And then there are those who join lay people in itinerant teams that go on evangelization missions.

Since the end of 2019, this has been the case for Father Vincent Di Lizia, a priest of the Archdiocese of Rheims in the northeastern part of France.

He is part of a seven-member missionary team sponsored by the archdiocese. The group has already carried out four missions and six more are planned for the coming months.

"Nowadays, we have forgotten that the word 'parish' comes from the Greek 'paroikia' or 'sojourning in a foreign land'. And we have made it into something that is settled," regrets Father Di Lizia.

"If Jesus 'established' disciples, it was to send them out!" he says.

Father Jean-Paul Russeil agrees. He’s vicar general of the Archdiocese of Poitiers and is an expert on itinerant priests.

The archdiocese held a synod in 2003 and itinerancy was one of its focuses. It has become a recurring theme, even though Poitiers has not had any "itinerant priests" since 2008.

"What defines priests, according to Vatican II, is the apostolic sending received at ordination," says Father Russeil.

"The council’s ‘Decree on the Ministry and the Life of Priests’ invites us to be priests in the manner of the apostles, and roots our ministry in these words of John: 'As the Father has sent me, so I send you'," he points out.

Linking two experiences

In the Gospels, is it not Jesus himself who "has nowhere to lay his head"?

"To be itinerant is to bear witness that human life is not only about utility, a form of hoarding," continues Father Russeil.

He says it is essential to seek "deep spiritual resources" for this itinerancy. Far from being just a way of "managing the shortage" of priests and practicing Catholics, it also gives missionary impetus to a given place.

Francis Manoukian, founder of the Emmanuel Itinerant Missionary Team (EMI), regrets that "the priesthood has been reduced to its pastoral dimension and that the mission has been forgotten".

He believes that these two "complementary" models have always been linked.

"Until the 1950s, parish ministry and missions preached by visiting preachers were complementary. It would be beneficial to continue to link these two experiences, because one cannot do without the other," he says.

Precise rules

The life of an itinerant priest is made up of the unexpected, but it also responds to precise rules.

Father Manoukian has set up a method to help the parishes he visits create their own mission. He says this entails "real work, with a pastoral and theological dimension".

He is very much on the move, but he does not see himself as a "troubadour with a guitar".

Above all, he says, being an itinerant allows him to help Catholics he meets to "find a little itinerancy in sedentary life" and "not to become compartmentalized".

Father Paul de Tinguy is a young priest from the Diocese of Saint-Flour in south-central France. He experienced itinerancy last summer when he traveled in a caravan to three of the eleven villages of his parish dressed in a cassock.

He celebrated Mass every day in mostly deserted churches. He cleaned the sacristies and offered Eucharistic adoration. 

But, above all, he came to meet the people of these villages and set up meetings between them.

"The priest who spends three days in a village is not the courageous one,” he says. 

“It’s the residents who are there for years, keeping the Christian community alive each and every day.”