What were Vincent’s “opportunities for advancement” that his “misfortunes” had prevented him from achieving?
In the following narratives, let me recount some of the life events that led him to this self-realization. He calls some of these “projects.” His recent biographer, Jose Roman, refers to this succession of events as his “plans and setbacks” from 1601 to 1617. Quite a long journey toward “conversion” — a full seventeen years.
In 1601, months after his ordination, he was assigned as parish priest in the parish of Tilh, also in the south of France, around 40 kilometers from Dax where he studied. As in medieval times, a parish was a “benefice” — a church office — usually a lifelong appointment that gave a permanent and guaranteed income to the priest in exchange for performing spiritual duties such as celebrating the sacraments. The Church ensured that the priest, the beneficiary, was assured of revenue from land, endowments, or the tithes of the people. In those days, the priest did not have to reside there. He could ask another priest to do the work for him, pay him a salary, and keep most of the income for himself.
The benefice of the parish of Tilh was granted to Vincent upon the endorsement of Monsieur de Comet, his first benefactor from his student days who entrusted to him the care of his school for boys. This was supposed to be Vincent’s first benefice, one step toward his longed-for “advancement.” It turned out to be his first failure.
When he went to claim it, another priest, M. Saint-Soube, was already there. Saint-Soube’s appointment came from the Curia in Rome. For Vincent to claim his right to the title, he had to file a lawsuit. He went to Rome to pursue his claim, but he soon realized that he had no chance against his rival.
What catches our attention, however, is St. Vincent’s joy when he first stepped into the holy city. “What a happiness,” he wrote later, “it is to be able to tread the same ground that so many great and holy people walked! This thought affected me so much when I was in Rome thirty years ago that, although I was weighed down by sin, I think the experience never ceased to move me, even to the point of tears.”
“Thirty years ago” referred to 1601, right after that contested but failed parish assignment.
After failing to secure the title to the parish of Tilh in Rome, Vincent returned to Toulouse to continue his studies — earning a second degree in theology and the license to expound Peter Lombard’s Sentences, which was then the “textbook” for theological studies. The school for boys that he managed before ordination was also flourishing.
In 1605, he went to Bordeaux “on a matter of urgent importance,” Pierre Coste wrote. He was aiming for something greater beyond a country parish. He was offered the possibility of becoming a bishop by a certain Duc d’Epernon, an uncle of his pupils.
After failing in one project, another opportunity came. It would have given him the advancement he longed for. But later in his life, he regretted it, calling it a project “so rash which I dare not speak about.”
This was the fifth year after his ordination, and the second project collapsed even faster than the first. God was showing him that greater things were in store for him beyond his personal ambitions and self-promotion.
The biographer Jose Roman commented: “Even though he was pious, even though he could be moved to tears [while in Rome], Vincent was not yet a saint. He was a young man with a career ahead of him… Such aspirations were lawful and reasonable in his day… as it is in ours. It is just that they were not the aspirations of a saint.”
Conversion was a long and arduous process in St. Vincent’s life, as it is in ours.
Father Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M., is the President of Adamson University in Manila. He is a theologian, professor, and pastor of an urban poor community on the outskirts of the Philippine capital. He is also the Vincentian Chair for Social Justice at St. John’s University in New York.
