Lessons we can learn from Bishop Portier

The Archdiocese of Mobile is proud to present an excellently produced video on the life of our first bishop. Although the cathedral parish was established in 1703 and is the oldest congregation of any faith or denomination in Alabama, it was not until 1825 that a bishop was appointed for Mobile. His name was Michael Portier from Lyon, France. As a seminarian in France he read a pamphlet asking seminarians to serve as a priest on the American frontier, of which Alabama was a part. The pamphlet stated:
We offer you no salary, no recompense, no holidays, but much hard work, a poor dwelling, few consolations, many disappointment, frequent sickness, a violent or lonely death, and an unmarked grave.
After reading this, young Michael Portier left his native Lyon, the second-largest city in France and a center of culture and commerce, and volunteered to serve in the most primitive of conditions in America where settlements were only beginning to be established. At the age of 30 he was appointed to serve as Mobile’s first bishop. The Diocese of Mobile then encompassed all of Alabama and Florida. He had three churches, Mobile, Pensacola and St. Augustine, and no priests. He labored and, with God’s help, he firmly established the Church in his new homeland. He died in Mobile in 1859 after 34 years as our bishop.
There are two important reasons why we should learn about him. First, because he was a man of faith. He trusted in God even when he felt God was calling him to do something very difficult – leave family and homeland and serve in an unfamiliar place. It was a leap of faith for him to come to America and be ordained a priest. His example of faith speaks to us and calls us to trust in God.
Second, he faced the same challenges we face today. Times may change, but as the Bible states: “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecc 1:19) We can learn from the past how best to address the challenges of the present.
In reading about Bishop Portier, he had six major challenges in his ministry as a bishop. In no particular order they were:
n Teaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, especially to the young people, in a society that did not support the faith. Frontier Alabama was rough and primitive. There were few churches, no schools and no institutions to support the faith. Bishop Portier worked diligently to spread the faith in such a society.
n Helping the poor. Yellow Fever and other epidemics occurred frequently. Often the bread winner of the family would die, or both parents would die. He sought to help widows and orphans who would be left destitute. By the way, he was quite familiar with pandemics. He himself was a Yellow Fever survivor.
n Vocations. He would travel back to Lyon and ask seminarians and young priests to come to Mobile with the same spirit of trust in God as he had when he first came to America, and they came. Finding priests to serve was always a challenge for him.
n Serving immigrants, especially those who spoke a different language from him and the priests. Remember that Mobile had been a French colony. The people spoke French. The priests from Lyon spoke French. Bishop Portier spoke French. But the new immigrants from Ireland spoke English and it was necessary to minister to them in their language. Bishop Portier studied hard in order to speak English.
n Paying for Church ministries. Helping the poor, educating priests, and building churches and schools was costly, so he sought donations to meet these heavy expenses.
n Scandalous behavior of a priest. History records that he had to deal with the scandalous behavior of one of his priests.
If I would list my major challenges as Archbishop today, I would list the same six: teaching the Good News, especially to the young in a society which does not support the faith; helping the poor; fostering vocations to the priesthood; serving immigrants who speak a language different from mine; raising funds; and, sadly, at times, having to address scandalous clerical misconduct.
We can learn much from the past and be encouraged by the past. God does not abandon us. He was with Bishop Portier and He is with us now.
I invite you to watch this 50-minute video available beginning April 26 on the archdiocesan website (mobarch.org) or the Facebook page of the Archdiocese of Mobile. I hope you will enjoy: "Servant of the South —The Life of Bishop Michael Portier."