Description: Abbé Georges Michonneau (1899-1983) was a dedicated and zealous parish priest among the working class of Paris. In his three works of this anthology the reader will find a profound awareness of the full reality of the Church of Christ, its role in the world, and the service it must render to the people who make up the Body of Christ on earth. For that reason, and because his priestly heart was very much in the right place, and also because the pre-conciliar pastoral problems he sought to address are still in essence the same pastoral problems as today's, what Abbé Michonneau had to say in the mid-twentieth century retains value in our day.
Brief description: Georges Michonneau was born in 1899, and at the age of 23 was ordained priest at Niort, in the diocese of Poitiers (France), after which he was appointed curate in the town of Châtellerault. Four years later, in 1926, he joined the Fils de la Charité (Sons of Charity), a religious congregation founded in 1918 in Paris for the evangelization of the urban working class. Soon after he was sent to be curate in Clichy, an outer suburb of Paris. From 1939 to 1947 he was parish priest of nearby Petits Colombes, during which time he wrote "Revolution in a City Parish," a seminal text of the French parish missionary movement, in which he was a leading figure. From 1947 to 1956 he was parish priest in neighbouring Colombes. His last appointment was to Belleville, a more central working-class suburb of Paris, from 1956 to 1966. Apart from the many works he authored about missionary parishes and priestly ministry, many of which were published in English translations, he was also author of the "Missel communautaire," which ran to many editions over several decades, beginning while he was curé at Petits Colombes. This small, inexpensive hand missal was intended to foster communal participation in worship among his largely working-class congregation, with the Mass texts and hymns translated into French and photos to add visual emphasis to the texts. He died in 1983.
Review Quotes: The term "new evangelization" may not have been coined until after the Council, but the reality of it was being lived out well before. Already in the 1940s, industrial France was recognized by church leaders as mission territory, and a good deal of new ardor, methods, and expressions were devoted to reaching the young and working classes. Abbé Michonneau was at the vanguard of these efforts. These three books, re-released here by Arouca Press in one volume, are essential reading for those interested not only in the new evangelization itself, but for understanding the growing pastoral crisis to which Vatican II was responding. -Professor Stephen Bullivant, author of Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America
The writings of Abbé Michonneau are seasoned with spiritual and psychological insights into the practical mechanics of parish life, reflecting Michonneau's years of experience ministering to working class Catholics in the suburbs of Paris. Michonneau's observations cover an astonishing breadth of subject matter, from clerical culture, to collections, to parish organization, and outreach. The Parish and the Working Class is a fantastic resource for priests or laymen looking for ideas to energize their parish but wary of the modern, kitchy revitalization programs so in vogue today. -Philip Campbell, Catholic writer and author of The Story of Civilization seriesThe Abbé Michonneau may have thought that "a suburban priest makes a poor author," but if that is so, he was an exception to the rule. This book is beautifully written, well translated, and provides a fascinating insight into the context from which so many of the changes to Catholicism in the second half of the twentieth century emerged. -The Rev'd Prof Stephen Morgan DPhil (Oxon), Rector of the University of Saint Joseph, Macao