The Diocese of Vannes (Brittany, France), has a new priest as of June 21. He is Étienne Portalis, 28 years old, a student who was trained as a seminarian for six years in the International Ecclesiastical College Sedes Sapientiae.
The ceremony was held at the church of Muzillac and was broadcasted live by the YouTube channel of the diocese. He was the only priest to be ordained in a parish with limited seating.
After six years of training in Rome, received diaconate ordination in September 2019 by imposition of hands by Bishop Raymond Centène, the same bishop who ordained him a priest.
Brittany is a rather special region: close to the Atlantic, very rainy, Celtic-speaking, with very old and deep-rooted traditions, it has a higher percentage of Catholics than the national average.
Étienne was born in Toulon in August 1992 and, like his older brother, was consecrated to Notre Dame at his baptism. "I grew up in Cherbourg until the summer of 2005, when my seventh brother was born and my whole family settled in Lorient," he says in an interview published by the website of the diocese.
His parents raised him in the Catholic faith. His entire family (seven siblings) attended Mass every Sunday and prayed together at night. During vacations, they used to visit Benedictine abbeys.
"When I was little I thought about being a priest, then military. Childish logic made me decide rather quickly. I will be a military chaplain!", states.
At the University of Saint Louis in Lorient, he discovered other Christian realities. At the end of his third year at the university, his father encouraged him to participate in a vocational pathl at Jean-Paul II's house in Sainte Anne d'Auray, "but I categorically refused. I wanted to stay in the military", he points out.
Moment of the ordination of Étienne Portalis, 28, a student who trained as a seminarian for six years at Sedes Sapientiae International Ecclesiastical College. He is the only priest to receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders on June 21, 2020 in the diocese of Vannes. (Brittany, France). The ceremony was held in the church of Muzillac and was broadcast live on the YouTube channel of the diocese.
However, he experienced a strong call to the priesthood during a mass in Belle-Île, while accompanying a group of university students in a parish activity. Even so, in September 2010, he began preparing for the admission to the most prestigious military school in France: St. Cyr.
"Thanks to the spiritual climate transmitted to me by the military chaplain of the school, the two years of preparation helped me to grow in my faith and to discern that the life of a soldier was not for me. After a pilgrimage from Assisi to Siena and a first contact with a formator of the diocese, I abandoned the saber to choose the hyssop in August 2012."he says Étienne.
Étienne Portalis said a few words at the end of his priestly ordination ceremony. His family has supported him in his vocational journey. He has six siblings. His parents educated him in the Catholic faith and every evening they prayed together as a family. Brittany is a somewhat special region: Celtic-speaking, with very old and deep-rooted traditions, it has a higher percentage of Catholics than the national average.
Your family supported him in his decision and in the new journey of his life. In September 2013, Bishop Centène sent him to Rome, to the Ecclesiastical College Sedes Sapientiae.
"During these years of preparation and study, I have also participated in the life of my diocese, especially during the summers. Among other activities, I have collaborated in and in the camps and in the missions. I've been going to camp every summer since I was eight years old and I don't know what I'd do without one of them!" he says.
This new French priest asks all the benefactors of CARF for prayers so that "God will finish in me what he started".
Since 2010, Msgr. Centène has sent several seminarians to the Sedes. Étienne is the fourth to receive priestly ordination. He was preceded by Jean (2015), David (2018) and Johann (2019).
