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A FRENCHMAN will be ordained a priest in the Glenmary Home Missioners on Saturday,May 23, at St. Matthias Church in Forest Park, a suburb of Cincinnati.
In ceremonies beginning at 11:00, with the Most Reverend Daniel E Pilarczyk, auxiliary bishop of Cincinnati, as the principal celebrant, Francois Pellissier will enter the priesthood. His first pastoral appointment will be effective on June 2, when he becomes associate pastor of the Church of Jesus Our Savior in Morehead, Ky., and the missions of St. Julia's in Owingsville and Prince of Peace Chapel in West Liberty.
Father Francois is one of four children of Mrs. Michelle Pel1issier, who lives in Paris, France, and Maurice Pellissier, who died in 1953.
The ordinand was born in 1949 in Neuilly-Seine. a few miles from Paris, and was educated in the public schools of that city and at the University of Caen and the Sorbonne, Paris. In 1971 he joined the Little Brothers of the Gospel and worked with that order in Italy, Algeria and France. In 1974 he was sent to the United States to work in Appalachia, Va.
Many Americans are unaware that missions are not always in underdeveloped countries, on islands and in faraway corners of the world. In the United States, especially in Appalachia and the South, there is a large mission area. In the 12 states in which Glenmary works, only .6% of the population is Catholic and only 1% of all church members are Catholic. Glenmary was founded in 1939 to make the Church more present in this region.
Among more than 100 Glenmary priests and Brothers, Father Francois is the first who is not native born.
While engaged in ministry among coal miners and the poor in the mountains of southwest Virginia, Father Francois came to know the work of the Glenmary Home Missioners and in 1976 joined Glenmary. Since then he has studied at the Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C., where he received a master's degree in divinity.
January 1981 was a memorable month for Father Francois. On the 13th. at the court house in Washington, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He holds dual dtizenships, in France and the U.S.A. On January 23 he made his perpetual Glenmary oath to God, and on the following day he was ordained to the diaconate and assigned to the Glenmary parish in Dahlonega. Ga., Nineteen days later, on February 12, he observed his 32d birthday.
"I have chosen this country to live in," he said. "I want to make my home here. I want to work with Catholic people who have had to struggle for their faith, and there are some who have had to pay a high price for it."
In addition to the academic training Father Francois has received since joining Glenmary, he spent the summer of 1978 in a clinical pastoral education program at Bethesda Hospital, Cincinnati, and has had opportunities for practical experience in mission work. He was in Shelbyville, Tenn., for five months of his novitiate and he spent last summer in New Albany, Miss., where he worked for LIFT, Inc., a housing program for the poor, conducted workshops for church readers and classes for parents and their children who were preparing for First Communion. His preaching practice began at St. Francis of Assisi Church in New Albany and has continued at St. Luke's in Dahlonega.
Having studied English from the sixth grade, Father Francois speaks the language easily. but a certain inflection is intriguing to rural people, children in particular. They try to imitate him, in speech and style. When he mentioned that he liked Robinson Crusoe, the library in the town where he was assigned had a run on the book.
In turn, Father Francois has learned from the young. Being very tall, he found he must sit or bend to talk with children. That simple lesson, he said, was one he would not forget, that he must always start with people on the level where they are.
The young man from France, with a unique background, a fine education and experience, brings love, hope and the rest of his life as a gift to Mission Land, U.S.A. Even his hobbies will be useful in his work; he plays classical guitar and rides an oversize Fuji Bicycle -- to accommodate his height. Parents of young children who try to follow his example will be relieved that he does not use tobacco and his favorite beverage is mint syrup with soda water.
News Release - May 15, 1981 |
