We are a Roman Catholic Congregation of Priests, Brothers and Lay Associates. Our congregation was founded in Paris in 1703 by a 24-year-old Breton Lawyer, Claude Poullart des Places.
Des Places founded a community for young men who wished to become priests and dedicated it to the Holy Spirit. In 1765 the Holy See began to entrust the Congregation with the direct care of mission territories beginning with French Guiana, and in 1779 the first two Spiritan Missionaries arrived in Sénégal, Africa.
Venerable Fr. Francis Libermann is considered our congregation’s “second founder.” Born into an orthodox Jewish family in France in 1802, he was given the name Jacob. His father was a rabbi, and Jacob was preparing to become a rabbi himself, but his studies led him to discover the New Testament and to Christianity. He was baptized Francis Mary Paul, in 1826, at Christmas.
Soon afterwards he felt the call to the priesthood and began studies in earnest. However, sickness intervened in the form of violent attacks of epilepsy, and it was fifteen years later before he was finally ordained, in 1841. Those intervening years, though full of struggle, were also a time of grace and of maturing. His approach of “practical union with God” helped him, and others, find the divine in the everyday. His spirituality of responsiveness to the Spirit served Libermann well.
Spiritans of the Irish Province serve in over a dozen countries including Ireland. Several dozen are professed members while a smaller number of lay members are Spiritan Associates. Much emphasis is placed on how we go about our work. It is not enough to work for others, though that is necessary; more emphasis is put on being close to people, on the quality of our life and presence, on solidarity, on opening up to new horizons and on a greater collaboration with holders. We give voice to Gospel justice where it cannot be heard or has been silenced.
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