ANCEL 2024 EXHIBITION

Major projects

Extract (pages 111-117) of Mgr Olivier de Berranger, Alfred Ancel, a man for the Gospel, 1898-1984, Centurion, 1988.

Prado, founded by Antoine Chevrier as a "Providence" for the education of adolescents deprived of a minimum of religious instruction, and as a nursery for poor apostles, was destined to undergo considerable change. We can speak of the real "mutation" of an institution, initially embodied in the "works" of Lyons, while it was to become more and more a part of a social transformation and a missionary dynamism that affected the whole of the Church in France.

The model of a "work of First Communion" and a "clerical work", such as Alfred Ancel had inherited from his predecessors, was hardly transposable elsewhere, whatever dreams he might have had on the subject. At the time, it was difficult for him not to see Prado as something other than the specific institution it had been bequeathed; the 'secular' character of the pradotists was not lost on him, but he did not immediately draw the consequences for integrating their ministry into their respective dioceses. Moreover, this image of Prado managing its own works in the service of the most disadvantaged, in a France shaken by war, was widespread among both bishops and representatives of public order.

This was particularly evident when the question arose of entrusting Prado with the "re-education" of juvenile delinquents.

In 1933, while Father Ancel was in Limonest, the superior of the Prado, who was Father Charnay at the time, took the initiative of establishing an "agricultural work" in Salornay, in the commune of Hurigny, in the Saône-et-Loire region. Francis Jaillet, one of those pradosian educators Émile Gerin would have liked to keep at La Roche, was the man who cleared the large plot of land at Salornay that a generous baroness, who had no descendants, had wanted to give to Prado along with her beautiful property. At the time, Father Ancel was one of those pradosians who remained, to say the least, perplexed by this foundation. It is significant that he never asked Father Jaillet to come to Limonest to give a talk to the seminarians. When Jean Rosier, a friend of Father Jaillet from Roch, asked Father Ancel why he was so cautious, he replied: "You have to do the same thing for Salornay as Gamaliel did...". By this, Father Ancel meant, as Gamaliel had said of the preaching of the apostles: "If the work comes from men, it will fall of its own accord; if it comes from God, you will not be able to hold it back".

In fact, the work held up well. It became Prado's first "re-education centre", and was soon recognised by the Mâcon academy as "eminently social". Once he became superior, Father Ancel no longer shied away from it, and came in person to inaugurate a new building completed by young refractory members of the S.T.O. (Service du Travail Obligatoire) at the beard of the Germans. The young superior of Prado had not hesitated to allocate a large sum of money for the building, set aside by Francis Laffay before 1939. Father Jaillet's talents were such that the sum had to be repaid in full, and when he left Salornay in 1952 after twenty years there, he left his successor, Roger Giraud, premises capable of accommodating 130 boys and workshops for carpentry, printing, mechanics, bookbinding, shoemaking, cooperage, bricklaying and baking, which had been added to the original agricultural school.

If this new initiative had taken some time to gain the support of the pradotians, what would happen to a transformation that would affect the work directly founded by Antoine Chevrier, in the very place that became known as the "mother house", in La Guillotière? The external setting, so important for maintaining the symbols, had remained more or less unchanged. Even the clothing worn by First Communion children had not been changed since 1927. In 1939, the uniform they wore for the big day of the ceremony was still the checked smock, as it had been in 1860... When, after five years as Superior, Father Ancel decided to introduce much more fundamental changes, he had to explain himself at length in the review of the Alumni of La Roche, which had become the liaison organ for all friends of Prado. He did so on the basis of a historical observation: "From 1860 to 1914, the world had evolved slowly. The war of 1914 and above all that of 1939 precipitated this evolution. The world, even the world of children, was no longer the same. We had to realise this. We had to take it into account.

There was nothing abstract about the new awareness at Prado. It did not begin with an analysis of post-war society. Véronique Devaux, for example, who was the Sister in charge of the girls' "series", as we used to say, pointed out to Father Ancel in 1945 how inadequate the traditional six months were for providing catechesis to children brought up in a de-Christianised atmosphere. On the other hand, from before the Liberation, increasingly urgent requests were made to Prado, both by the public authorities and by certain bishops, to take charge of juvenile delinquents. This is how the "Prado des Sucs", in Saint-Romain-le-Puy, was founded in 1943, before moving after four years to Oullins, south of Lyon, and then to Fontaines-Saint-Martin, along the Saône. This was a home for the mildly retarded. The Prado sisters lent themselves wonderfully to this new work. Also in the Gironde region, in 1944, a lay educator worked with Prado to found a re-education centre at Pont-de-la-Maye. And in 1945, a reception centre for juvenile delinquents, between the time of their arrest and their trial, was set up in Nantes under the responsibility of Father Joseph Tortel. Father Ancel found a remarkable educational adviser in Father Joseph Filliatre. Mrs Line Thévenin provided him with the support of a doctor and exceptional legal expertise.

So it wasn't until 1947 that the decision was made to touch "the mother house...". Father Ancel did not wish to abandon the "Work of First Communion". But since, as he observed, "even the world of children was no longer the same", it was necessary to adapt the work to the changing conditions of society without abandoning the spirit that had presided over its foundation. Alfred Ancel wrote a page on this subject that reveals the depth of his thinking. Not only does he seek to enter into the spirit of a founder, but he penetrates with him into the spiritual dynamism that gave him the dimensions of a precursor:

"The true forerunner, following the spirit of the Gospel, is neither an adventurer nor a conformist.
"He's not a conformist. That's obvious. Anyone who is tied to past forms or to methods that are currently "in vogue" does not have sufficient freedom to move forward; he is a "follower". For this reason, Father Chevrier did not hesitate to criticise in an objective and severe way the formalist methods that were fashionable in his day.

"The true trailblazer is not an adventurer either. Nothing is more opposed to his spirit than to 'take off in a huff' or to 'go for it' by pushing a more or less successful idea to the extreme (...). Neither a conformist nor an adventurer, Father Chevrier was an evangelical. With his eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus and his doctrine, he knew how to find in the Gospel and in the living tradition of the Church the answer to all the concrete problems that arose.

"Generally speaking, people do not know how to understand their times, and when they do, they do not know how to meet their needs. Those who draw their inspiration from the very pure source of the Gospel know how to both understand their times and offer them the remedies they need. He understands his times because he looks at them through the eyes of Jesus, who is the light of the world. He loves his contemporaries very much. He doesn't judge them, he wants to save them. When you love, you understand. He proposes appropriate remedies because the Gospel is always appropriate (...). He has no doctrine of his own, no system of his own, but he receives his teaching from the only Master, who is Jesus. This does not prevent him from looking at what his brothers and sisters are doing in order to benefit from all their contributions.

"The disciple of Jesus is dominated neither by the fear of change nor by the appetite for the new; in the light of Jesus, he dominates time and adapts (...). The disciple of Jesus is therefore constantly a creator. To the adventurous, he is a latecomer. To the mass of men, he seems imprudent. In the eyes of history, he is a precursor, but that is relative. The adventurers go astray, the masses are late; he is present in his time.
Wasn't Alfred Ancel unwittingly tracing his own self-portrait? His intention was simply to show where he drew his inspiration. And that's what's so remarkable about this man. In 1925, he arrived from Rome, certainly full of generosity, but imbued with principles that were highly critical of the modern world. Here he is just over twenty years later. He has lost none of his willingness to distance himself from any current of thought that claims to impose itself on his apostolic views. But evangelical action has given him an attitude of understanding and a desire for realism that are stronger than his principles. This is why, overcoming his own reticence, that of his confreres and that of all the co-operators of a work that is already more than 80 years old, he decided to adapt it to new times.

On the one hand, the teaching methods had to be revised. After the war, it was no longer possible to impose on teenagers the regime of six or seven daily catechism sessions or exercises in piety that had been their lot when, as a young priest, Alfred Ancel had been assigned to the Œuvre de la Première Communion. The degree of de-Christianisation reached at that time by the society from which these young people came was such that it would have been necessary to use coercion to teach them religion at such a pace. But, as Father Ancel reminded us in Prado, "faith cannot be imposed".

There were also legislative developments that favoured the transformation of the work: compulsory schooling up to the age of 14 had been decreed in 1936 by the Front Populaire; and since 1945, subsidies had been available for the education of retarded or delinquent children. Paradoxically, it was this last point that caused the most difficulties for Prado, because, according to its leaders, if we wanted to maintain the spirit of Antoine Chevrier, shouldn't we depend absolutely on Providence alone?.. that is to say, in reality, on the "benefactors", who were being asked for more and more. These benefactors did not question the "line" of the new superior, but these were economically difficult times. In short, this was the normal evolution of mentalities that had to be taken into account. And so the "Prado de la Guillotière" became just another "Prado". As with all Prados, the aim was to maintain a Christian education, while providing primary education and vocational guidance.

This training was essentially based on a climate of freedom. Father Ancel liked to meet the teenagers himself, on the occasion of some "recollection" or other that he preached to them. He took a personal interest in them and sought out, among the Pradosians, those who were best able to understand and form them, so that they could benefit from a complete education that would truly prepare them for life. He also asked the Sisters to provide these houses with good educators. Moreover, on their own initiative, the Sisters created several "Foyers de jeunes ouvrières" to meet the growing needs in Lyon and its suburbs.

Other developments were to follow. Little by little, the management of Prado centres passed from the hands of clerics to those of lay people. Then, the introduction of a collective agreement in the profession of educator and, perhaps even more importantly, the growing influence of the "human sciences" on their pedagogical endeavours, accentuated the transformation of the former "re-education centres". After 1955, when the "Prado" in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or was created, the management of all the homes was gradually transferred from the former "Association de la Providence du Prado" to an "Établissement de la Providence du Prado" recognised as being in the public interest, so that legacies could be received without taxation. Father Émile Gerin, Prado's bursar at the time, was the driving force behind this change, but he acted in agreement with Father Ancel. In 1971, when Father Ancel left his post as superior, the separation between the "Establishment", which managed all the centres for adolescents, including the former "Mother House", and the Priestly Institute of Prado was complete.

Throughout this process, Alfred Ancel was described as "a genius who demonstrated a keen ability to adapt to external developments". Nevertheless, he did not resign himself wholeheartedly to the abandonment of the founder's original work, writing as late as 1954: "I have never been consoled by the disappearance of the Works of First Communion from Prado".