Jean-Marie Vianney was born into a farming family in Dardilly, near Lyon, on May 8, 1786. The Sanctuary of Ars records that he made his First Communion in a barn, at a Mass celebrated in secret by a priest who had refused the Revolution's oath. At twenty he began preparing for the priesthood with Fr. Balley, the parish priest of Écully. The sanctuary calls his training long and often difficult, and during those years he went on pilgrimage to La Louvesc, to the tomb of St. John Francis Regis. He was ordained a priest at Grenoble on August 13, 1815, and served first as curate at Écully.
In February 1818 he was sent to Ars, which Benedict XVI describes as a village of 230 souls, with the warning: "There is little love of God in that parish; you will be the one to put it there." He restored his church, founded an orphanage called La Providence and cared for the poorest. His reputation as a confessor drew pilgrims in growing numbers, and Benedict XVI recalls that the crowds of penitents kept him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. He left a saying that priests and seminarians still meet: "The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus." He died at Ars on August 4, 1859.
He was beatified on January 8, 1905, and in the same year St. Pius X placed the parish clergy of France under his patronage. Pius XI canonized him in 1925 and, by the Apostolic Letter Anno Iubilari of April 23, 1929, declared him heavenly patron of parish priests throughout the world. Later popes have held him up as a model for every priest, and in 2009 Benedict XVI proclaimed a Year for Priests for the 150th anniversary of his death, but the formal patronage concerns parish priests. St. John Paul II visited Ars in 1986, and a seminary was opened there the same year.