The Story of St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, Whose Feast Day in 2016 Is Thursday, August 4

[mdgspencer]

see ewtn.com/library/MARY/stjeanvianney.HTM
This priest who lived in the 19th century in France is one of the best known saints in the world, and there is a church named after him in most dioceses. Sent as the priest because his obvious lack of natural gifts to a tiny and remote village of his diocese in France, a rural village named Ars, where he remained the rest of his life, and whose people he transformed, he ended up galvanizing the Catholic world, hundreds of thousands every year coming there to him, because of his holiness, from all over Europe and the rest of the world. Spending 16 to 18 hours a day giving confessions the last ten years of his life, he could read the souls of people he never met. Now, he is the patron saint of Catholic priests.

 

[ClearWater]

Interesting. I didn’t know his story.

 

[Casilda]

I believe he still listens to confessions today. Testimony of a man who was on his deathbed, when no priest was available told of a Father John who showed up one night, took his confession and reminded him of his prayers, the Our Father and Hail Mary.

 

[Hatikvah]

I believe he still listens to confessions today. Testimony of a man who was on his deathbed, when no priest was available told of a Father John who showed up one night, took his confession and reminded him of his prayers, the Our Father and Hail Mary.

So someone can simply confess to St. John Vianney and he will absolve them if they cannot get to a priest before death? If he still listens to confessions today, am I interpreting that sentence correctly?