Stories of parish renewal
from around the world.
Sparking a Generation of Evangelists: A Story from France
Astrid and Tiphaine laugh as they switch between English and French on the Zoom call. It is Maundy Thursday of Holy Week and they are sharing their testimonies before heading off to evening Mass at St. Marc and La Daurade Church, part of the Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse (Student Parish of Toulouse).
Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse is a non-geographic multi-church parish focused on the largest concentration of college students in France (140,000 students within the city).
The assistant priest, Father Antoine Laviale, interned with Divine Renovation at Saint Benedict Parish before his ordination in 2023. Now, he ministers within a parish seeing intense renewal, especially in the Gen Z population.
Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse is unique, yet the overarching principles of Divine Renovation are at work. Their Leadership Team oversees smaller teams representing each of the parish’s four fraternities, composed of priests, young families and students — reflecting the unique structure of this student-focused parish.
The primacy of evangelization has spread beyond the clergy and leaders into the students themselves. Astrid and Tiphaine are evidence of this.
Astrid and Tiphaine laugh as they switch between English and French on the Zoom call. It is Maundy Thursday of Holy Week and they are sharing their testimonies before heading off to evening Mass at St. Marc and La Daurade Church, part of the Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse (Student Parish of Toulouse). Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse is a non-geographic multi-church parish focused on the largest concentration of college students in France (140,000 students within the city). The assistant priest, Father Antoine Laviale, interned with Divine Renovation at Saint Benedict Parish before his ordination in 2023. Now, he ministers within a parish seeing intense renewal, especially in the Gen Z population. Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse is unique, yet the overarching principles of Divine Renovation are at work. Their Leadership Team oversees smaller teams representing each of the parish’s four fraternities, composed of priests, young families and students — reflecting the unique structure of this student-focused parish. The primacy of evangelization has spread beyond the clergy and leaders into the students themselves. Astrid and Tiphaine are evidence of this.
With deep sorrow, we join the Church and the world in mourning the passing of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. A shepherd with a heart for the lost, a voice for...
It wasn’t until Father Michael Simoes became a parish priest that the weight of sustaining a parish in maintenance mode dropped on him. Moving from assistant to pastor, he found he had to “tread water to survive” and that “the parish always just felt like there was something missing.” Despite all the activity around him, the central missional point of their spirituality was missing. He says it felt like “the wilderness.” After trying a few ideas, the pandemic put a hold on any new growth. But it did provide time for Father Michael to start looking through any resources on parish renewal he could get his hands on. He was finished with just surviving: Father Michael wanted his parish to thrive.
I have been a priest for 30 years. I arrived as Parish Priest to St John the Baptist, Uddingston, a lovely, large parish in the suburbs of Glasgow, in January of 2022. In October of 2023 our Diocese of Motherwell got together its clergy with the help of a very talented lay management specialist, Adrian, to examine where the diocese was, is and is going. It was a story of great faith and blessings but also steady measurable decline. It was pointed out that we as a diocese were not actually running out of priests or even money, but we were running out of people.
