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Clerics of Saint Viator

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Congregatio Clericorum Parochialium seu Catechistarum S. Viatoris[1] (Latin)
Abbreviation C.S.V. (post-nominal letters)[2]
Nickname Viatorians[3]
Formation November 3, 1831[4]
Founder Rev. Louis Joseph Querbes, C.S.V.[5]
Founded at Lyon, France
Type Clerical Religious Congregation of Pontifical Right (for Men)[2]
Headquarters Via Padre Angelo Paoli 41, Rome, Italy[2]
Members 407 members (includes 172 priests) as of 2020[2]
Patron Saint Viator of Lyons[3]
Superior General Rev. Nestor Fils-Aimé, C.S.V.[6]
Countries present Burkina Faso Canada
Chile Colombia France
Haiti
Honduras Ivory Coast Japan
Peru
Spain
United States[7]
Ministry Educational, parochial, mission, campus ministry and chaplaincy works
Parent organization Catholic Church
Website www.viatorians.com

The Clerics of Saint Viator (French: Clercs de Saint-Viateur), abbreviated C.S.V. and also known as the Viatorians is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men (priest, brothers and lay associates) founded in Lyon, France, in 1831 by Father Louis Querbes. Its patron, Saint Viator, was a 4th-century catechist in Lyon. The institute spread from its origins in France to Canada and later to the United States; it now has provinces and missions all over the world. They are a teaching order and are involved in parish ministries and all levels of education, from grade school through university. Its members add the nominal letters C.S.V. after their names to indicate membership in the congregation.

Louis Querbes

Louis Querbes was born in Lyon, France, on 21 August 1793, during the French Revolution.[8] He was baptized in Saint Nizier Parish near the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fourvière. As a boy he participated in the choir and attended the clerical school in Saint Nizier Parish.

Querbes entered Saint Irenaeus Seminary and was ordained in 1816. He returned to Saint Nizier as a parochial vicar and became a skilled preacher. He became administrator of the clerical school at Saint Nizier.

In 1822, Louis Joseph Querbes was named pastor of Vourles,[9] a parish that had suffered during the Revolution. He took on the task of rebuilding the church and preaching to the faithful. He noted a lack of educational opportunities for the children there.

The Congregation of the Clerics of St. Viator

History

Father Querbes formed an association of catechists for rural schools: "The Catechists of Saint Viator". He chose as patron Viator of Lyon, a fourth-century local saint who was a lector serving Bishop Just of Lyon. The religious Congregation of the Clerics of Saint Viator, made up of parochial clerics and lay catechists, was approved in 1831 by Archbishop Gaston de Pins, Apostolic Administrator of Lyons.[10] Seven years later, he presented his society to the Pope but, counseled by advisors, he had dropped the inclusion of lay members, as it would not have been approved. Father Querbes was ahead of his time in wanting to form a community of lay and religious members. On 21 September 1838, he received pontifical approval for the religious institute of the Parochial Clerics or Catechists of Saint Viator.[11]

The Viatorians opened schools and worked in parishes first in France, and later in Canada and the United States. Father Louis Querbes died in Vourles 1 September 1859, but his work and charity continued after his death. At the death of its founder, the Congregation numbered between 250 and 300 members, including some fifty in Canada. They constituted four provinces: Vourles, Saint-Flour, Rodez, and Canada.[12]

19th century

After the death of Father Querbes and up until about 1880, the movement continued to grow. In France, the typical Cleric of Saint Viator served in small rural parishes, where he was, according to the wishes of the founder, "the cantor, sacristan, catechist, table-mate, and companion" of the priest and the principal of the school. Afterward, as the country entered an era of political turbulence, religious congregations that, up until that time, could direct public communal schools had to abandon them. They opened parish schools, which were free but poor. Members were obliged to do military service. The number entering novitiates declined. In 1900, there were approximately 500 French members of the 760 members in the entire Congregation.[12]

Clerics of the Province of Canada went in a different direction, directing primary schools as well as secondary schools, accepting responsibility for a parish, and creating an Institution for the Deaf.[12] The development of the Congregation proceeded based upon apostolic works. In 1897, a half-century after its founding, the Canadian chapter was composed of 215 members.[12]

In 1865, three Canadian members founded a school in Bourbonnais, Illinois, in the United States; this school later developed as St. Viator College.[13][14] A novitiate was opened, and in 1882, the members of the United States formed the Province of Chicago. At the end of the century, the Chicago Province was composed of about forty members.[12]

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the members of France formed the predominant group in the Congregation. Except for the Chicago Province, the other provinces were engaged in apostolic works that fit into the same framework: elementary schools, some of which were small boarding schools, which represented the principal commitment of the Congregation; several secondary schools, which involved a small number of members; social works (orphanages in France, the Montreal Institute for the Deaf); and sacristan duties in several parishes.[12] Small or medium-sized local communities predominated and consisted for the most part of religious brothers.

1903-1908

In May 1903, in France, the government decreed closing 11,000 schools and hospitals administered by religious congregations. Within the space of two months, the Clerics of Saint Viator of France saw their provincial houses, juniorates, novitiates, and residences for retired members closed and their personnel dispersed. All primary and secondary schools were affected; many of them disappeared. All properties of the Congregation were seized by the State; communities fell apart. Certain members went before tribunals and were sentenced to prison. Other members, especially those who were somewhat older, left for other countries.[12]

Belgium became a possible place of refuge for the members of the Province of Vourles, while Spain played the same role for those of the Province of Rodez. The Province of Canada indicated that, in case of necessity, it would welcome French confreres; 31 accepted Canada's hospitality. The provinces tried to re-establish themselves gradually. All the schools were free and run by laypeople. To support themselves, the organization took part in gardening and farming operations, a tailor shop for religious garb, and sold objects of piety. In Brussels, Belgium, and Vitoria, Spain, new schools were opened. When World War I broke out, about half of the French members were drafted; 29 of them were killed in battle.[12] This time period corresponded with the decline of the French influence upon the Congregation. By 1907–1908, the number of North American members was greater than the number of European members.

1920s-1960s

From the 1920s until the 1960s, the number of Canadian members grew steadily and eventually constituted two-thirds of the Congregation's membership (1,146 out of 1,760 in the year 1960). They set up several classical secondary schools, including in Joliette and Rigaud, as well as specialized institutions for the hearing impaired in Montreal and Quebec, and for the blind in Montreal.[12] This resulted in members moving east toward the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, north toward the regions of Abitibi and Témiscamingue, and west toward the Province of Manitoba. Several members, in 1931, went abroad to found a school in Manchuria.[15] Also in 1931, the Brothers of Our Lady of the Fields was merged into the Clerics of Saint Viator.[16]

Because of its growth, the Canadian Province was divided into smaller provinces: in 1938 provinces of Montreal and Joliette were established; in 1955 Abitibi and Saint Lawrence were founded). Over the years, Canadian members introduced the Congregation to Japan (1948), Taiwan (1953),[17] Peru (1959), and Haiti (1965).

In 1928 members of the Chicago Province petitioned for beatification of the organization's founder, Louis Querbes.[18] The Great Depression took a toll on the Province; Viator College was unable meets its financial obligations and closed in 1938.[14]

Members of the Province of Chicago served in large educational institutions, universities, chaplaincies, and parishes. The Chicago Province founded a school in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1961. A church was set up in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1955, where the Clerics taught at a newly opened high school.[19]

The French provinces re-organized gradually; their apostolic commitments remained unchanged. They became involved with parishes and collaborated with the diocesan clergy. In 1955, French members founded a school in Bouaké, Ivory Coast.[12]

The Clerics moved into Spain, slowly at first but more solidly after 1920. In spite of the interruptions caused by the Civil War (1936–1939), the local communities in Spain formed a vice-province in 1937; ten years later, they became a full-fledged province. Starting in 1957, Spain founded several establishments in Chile.

1960s-1970s

Vatican Council II brought renewed emphasis on the questions and challenges that were present everywhere in the late 1960s. Problems within institutions and communities led many members to leave the Clerics of Saint Viator. Reflections that began at the 1969 and 1972 General Chapters resulted in the drafting of a renewed Constitution (1978) that refocused the organization on its mission and the religious life of the Clerics of Saint Viator.[12]

During the renewal process, the congregation decided to accept lay associates, both men and women, into the community. This had been part of Father Louis Querbes' original concept. The degree to which non-clerics participate varies among the local communities.

2000s

In 2010 and 2011, the Clerics organized and hosted a Youth Congress in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

In 2012, a number of former students of the Montreal Institute for the Deaf operated by the Viatorians in Montreal, Canada made public their claims of sexual abuse by priests at the institute.[20] In 2016, the Clerics of St Viateur, who operated the institute, agreed to a $30 million (CAD) payment to settle the claims.[21] The settlement was the largest ever awarded in Quebec for a sexual abuse case.[21][22]

As of 2018 the Clerics of St. Viator continue to provide education and shelter for youth.[23]

Viatorian schools

Canada

  • Collège Bourget (Rigaud, Quebec)
  • Collège Champagneur (Rawdon, Quebec)
  • Montreal Institute for the Deaf (Montreal, Quebec, closed)

Chile

Colombia

Haïti

Japan

Spain

Taiwan

United States

  • Columbus College, (Chamberlain, South Dakota and Sioux Falls, operated 1909–1929).[24][25]
  • St. Edward Grammar School (Chicago, Illinois)[26]
  • Bishop Gorman High School (Summerlin, Nevada)
  • St. Viator College (Bourbonnais, Illinois, closed)
  • St. Viator Elementary School (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Saint Viator High School (Arlington Heights, Illinois, adjacent to its American provincialate)
  • St. Viator School (Paradise, Nevada)

Superiors General

The following have served as head of the institute as is its superior general:

  • 1972–1984 Rev. Thomas Langenfeld, C.S.V.[27]
  • 1984–1986: Rev. Jacques Berthelet, C.S.V.[28]
  • 2000–2012: Rev. Mark R. Francis, C.S.V.[29]
  • 2012–2018: Rev. Alain Ambeault, C.S.V.[30]
  • 2018–2024: Rev. Robert M. Egan, C.S.V.[28]
  • 2024–present: Rev. Nestor Fils-Aimé, C.S.V.[31]

See also

Additional sources

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Clerics of Saint Viator — St. Viator, lector of the cathedral at Lyons, France, lived in the fourth century and is the earliest type of the teacher of the cathedral schools, In the exercise of the then important functions of the lectorate, namely in reading and expounding the Scriptures to the people and in catechizing the children, he displayed that zeal and ability for which he was held in such high esteem by his bishop, Saint Just, and by the Christian flock of Lyons. Hagiographers refer to him as "a most holy youth, who on account of his eminent virtues was much beloved by his bishop". After the Council of Aquileia (381) St. Just decided to spend the remainder of his life in the penitential solitudes of Thebais, and selected young Viator as the companion of his voluntary exile. Both the aged bishop and his youthful lector died in the odour of sanctity in an austere monastery of Scété in the year 389. The feast of St. Viator, according to the Roman martyrology, is observed on 21 October.

Because St. Viator had sanctified himself in teaching the young, he was selected as the patron of a community of parochial clerics or catechists, who are priests and teaching brothers living on a footing of religious equality. This community, known as the Clerics of St. Viator, was founded in the year 1835 by the Very Rev. Father Louis-Joseph Querbes, pastor of the village of Vourles in the Archdiocese of Lyons. Desirous of securing Christian teachers for his own and for neighbouring parishes, where sad havoc had been wrought by the Reign of Terror, Father Querbes established at Vourles as early as 1829 a school for the training of lay teachers, which was soon officially sanctioned by the Royal Council of Public Instruction. In 1835 this organized band of secular teachers developed into a community of priests and brothers with the vows of religion, and was approved by the archiepiscopal authority of Lyons. With the assistance of the Roman Jesuits, Father Querbes obtained the approbation of the statutes of his new community from Gregory XVI in 1838. Under the generalship of Father Querbes the membership of the community increased so rapidly that before the time of his death (1 Sept., 1859) there existed three provinces of the society in France and one in Canada; and the Clerics, besides teaching very many parochial schools, conducted the boarding colleges of Camonil (Rodez), St-Michel (Paris), St. Angeau College, the Deaf and Dumb College of Rodez, schools of agriculture at Blancotte and Notre-Dame de Treize-Pierres, and at Fontaines-sur-Saone a well-equipped publishing house from which were issued a large number of practical school classics and educational magazines such as "L'Ecole et la Famille" and "L'Ange Gardien", setting forth the necessity of co-operation between home, church, and school, pastor, parent, and teacher in view of the best educational results.

All the important houses of the community have been suppressed in France, where some two hundred members of the institute are still teaching in what are called Ecoles Libres. The exiled members are conducting flourishing schools in Spain and in Belgium, where the superior-general now resides. In 1847 Bishop Bourget, of Montreal, obtained from Father Querbes teachers for a small college recently founded in Joliette, Canada. Father S. Champagneur, C.S.V., who was appointed president of the college, opened a novitiate in Joliette in 1848, and became provincial superior of the new obedience of Canada, which developed rapidly in membership and efficiency. Soon Bourget College arose in Rigaud, the Deaf and Dumb School and the St. Louis School in Montreal, the St. Viator School in Juliette, and ten commercial colleges in the villages of the Province of Quebec. With this impetus the community continued to make rapid strides under the successors of Father Champagneur, Fathers Lajoie, Beaudry, and Ducharme, who found it necessary to enlarge the colleges of Bourget and Joliette. This last is now known as the Seminaire de Joliette, and is admittedly one of the best-equipped colleges of the Dominion. Having now three hundred priests and brothers, the Provincial administration was able to accept the large Ecole St. Jean Baptiste, Montreal, and to open colleges in St. Joseph de Levis, Berthier, Terrebonne, Boucherville, St. Remi, and to take charge of a large number of primary schools.

In the United States the Clerics of St. Viator, sometimes called Viatorians, have since 1865 had important parochial schools in Bourbonnais, Kankakee, St. George, Aurora, and Chicago, Illinois, in St. Joseph's parish, Cohoes, New York, in the cathedral parish, Ogdensburg, New York, and in Baker City, Oregon. In all these schools, except that of Bourbonnais, the Brothers have gradually been replaced by Sisters. The members of the community are now exercising their educational activities almost exclusively in high school and college work. Owing chiefly to this change in the educational conditions of the country, the Brothers of the American province more often embrace the larger opportunities offered by their community to pursue courses leading to the priesthood. The most important institution of the Viatorians in the United States is St. Viator College, Bourbonnais, Illinois, which grew out of the original district or village school, first into a commercial academy in 1865 upon the arrival of Father P. Beaudoin, and Brothers Martel and Bernard; then in 1868 with Father Thomas Roy, recently from Canada, the young school evolved into a classical college. The institution won the patronage of the public and the favour of the ecclesiastical authorities. After nine years of work Father Roy, whose memory was enshrined by his students in the beautiful Roy Memorial Chapel, returned in broken health to Canada, and was succeeded by Father M. J. Marsile, who directed the growing institution for over a quarter of a century. Under Father Marsile's presidency, courses and faculties in theology, philosophy, science, and languages were strengthened, and several branches were added to divers other courses to answer, the need of the times. In his honour his students built the Marsile Alumni Hall as a memorial. In 1906 the several buildings of St. Viator College were destroyed by fire. Courses were continued in improvised quarters and new buildings were erected. Father Marsile then resigned the presidency and Rev. J. P. O'Mahony, C. S. V., was appointed his successor. The college for several years has had a yearly enrollment of over three hundred students, and nearly three hundred priests and religious are numbered among its alumni. The list of commercial graduates and alumni who have entered the professions of law and medicine is larger still. St. Viator College has, besides a preparatory department and high school, the four years' college course proper. There is also, chiefly for the scholastics of the community, a complete four years' course of theology, to which diocesan students are admitted.

In 1910 Bishop O'Gorman, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, purchased from the Federal Government a group of ten school buildings situated in Chamberlain, and placed these in the hands of the community of St. Viator. The Knights of Columbus took an active interest in the founding of the new institution, which therefore was called Columbus College. In the United States the Viatorians have also undertaken the care of parishes. They have now charge of: the Maternity parish, Bourbonnais, Illinois; St. Edward's and St. Viator's, Chicago; St. Mary's, Beaverville, Illinois; and in Chamberlain, Pukwana, and Plankinton, South Dakota; and the five missions attached to the parish of McMinnville, Oregon. In years past they were pastors in St. George, Manteno, Aurora, Dwight, Brimfield, and St. Jean Baptiste, Chicago, Illinois. In 1882 the establishments of the middle west became independent of the Canadian province and were erected into a separate obedience. Very Rev. Father C. Fournier was appointed superior, and opened a novitiate in Bourbonnais, 6 Oct., 1882. In 1888 the novitiate and the headquarters of the provincial administration were moved to Chicago. During the twenty-five years of his incumbency as provincial and master of novices, Father Fournier supplied the new province with the needed force of well-trained teachers for the various schools of his jurisdiction. Very Rev. A. Corcoran came to the assistance of Father Fournier for four years as provincial (1898-1902). Upon the death of Father Corcoran, Father Fournier again resumed the burden of the provincial direction. Resigning in 1908, he was succeeded by Very Rev. J. A. Charlebois, the present superior. As teaching Christian doctrine by word and example is the most important function of the Christian educator, every catechist of St. Viator is required by the rule to write a complete course of religious instruction. The brother catechists twice every day read selected portions of the Holy Scripture, of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and of the Following of Christ. Priests and Brothers make daily a half hour meditation on the life of Christ and the virtues of religious life, read regularly ascetical works such as the "Christian Perfection" of Rodriguez, hear or say daily Mass, receive Holy Communion daily, and besides morning and evening prayers and beads in common, make a daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament or assist at benediction. The community rules require careful personal research in preparation for teaching. The books, school classics, published by members of the Congregation range from the elementary reading and spelling books to manuals of belle-lettres, from language primers and the small catechism to literary criticism and apologetics, from arithmetic to the higher mathematics.

Manual of the Clerics of St. Viator (Bourbonnais, Illinois, 1890); Directoires et reglements organiques de L'Institu des Clercs St-Viateur (Paris, 1900); QUERBES, Livre d'Or (Ms., Jette, Belgium); BOURGET, Vie de St-Viateur (Montreal, 1897); BOLLANDISTS, Vita Brevis Sancti Justi; SURIUS, Vita prolixior Sancti Justi; GOUILLOUD, Deux grands eveques de Lyon (Lyons, 1890); Breviary of Lyons; Feast of St. Viator, 21 Oct., Marytrology of Adon (858); Roman Martyrology, 2 Sept. and 21 Oct.; Collections de l'annuaire de l'institutet des lettres circulaires du superieur general (Jette, Belgium); L'Ecole et La Famille (pedagogical monthly, Fontainessur-Saone, France); L'Ange Gardien (devotional monthly, Paris); The Viatorian (college monthly, Bourbonnais, Ill.); The Missionary (Washington, D. C., June, 1912); The Catholic Church in the U.S. (New York, 1912).

References

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