Claude Francis Poullart des Places was born in February 1679 in Rennes , the capital of Brittany , as the only son of a wealthy couple of ancient and noble origins. They raised him with great care, both religiously and socially as befitting the son of one of the city's leading families. Travel, riding, the stage and ballet dancing were his favored forms of recreation.

He was also an exceptionally gifted student: one of the youngest, he placed first among the hundreds who graduated in 1697 from the Jesuit college in Rennes . Thus, he was chosen to be the defender in the solemn, philosophical debate that ended the academic year. Everybody who was somebody in Rennes attended the event, which lasted several hours. The eighteen-year old thrilled them by the charm of his youth, the grace of his eloquence, the clarity and depth of his replies. A thunderous applause marked the end of this stage of his life.

Following a round of parties, he embarked on his graduation present – a trip to Paris and an introduction to the king's court. The splendor of Versailles made a profound impression on him, and he would have loved to stay and share in its endless parade of glittering events. His father, however, took a dim view of his son's eagerness to spend his life in idle frivolity and called him back to Rennes . Reluctantly, Claude returned home and resumed the old routine of parties and social affairs.

Although his pious upbringing had so far safeguarded him from the dangerous pitfalls so common in such a life, Claude felt ill at ease. At one time he had dreamed of becoming a priest, and now he was rapidly drifting toward worldliness and pride. He made a serious retreat and resolved to become a priest, not an ordinary priest, but one whose eloquence would entrance thousands of people, eager to return to their heavenly Father. He would go to Paris , earn a doctorate in theology at the Sorbonne, and then set out to convert France . He did not yet realize how much his ambition for glory played a part in his desire.

It was a rude shock for his father when at last he told him about his decision, but the old man was wise enough not to antagonize his son. Instead of saying no, he pointed out that it would be better for Claude to test his vocation for a few years. Meanwhile he could study law, which would be useful later, whether he would become a priest or not. The young man saw the reasonableness of his father's proposal. Besides, the effect of the retreat was wearing off, his vocation appeared less pronounced and he enjoyed the prospect of having more freedom at the law school in Nantes than he could expect in Rennes under the eyes of his parents.

Mounted on a beautiful horse, with a sword strapped to his side, Claude and a companion proudly galloped toward Nantes . While riding along, an incident occurred which in later years he would refer to as an “enormous crime”. He had an altercation on the road with a local carrier of freight, perhaps over who had the right-of-way: the two young noblemen on their steeds or that wretched wagon. Feeling insulted, he drew his sword, wounding the freighter in an arm and on the body; whereupon the man lodged a complaint against him before the criminal court of justice in Rennes . His father had to rescue him by paying the victim an indemnity and all medical and legal expenses.

It was an unpromising beginning, but three years later Claude graduated with his license to practice law, still undecided about going on for the priesthood. For a full year he assisted his father in his many business enterprises; then he made another retreat. This one was more serious and led him to opt decisively at last for the priesthood.

To break with the past and with family ties, he resolved to study at Paris . Not at the Sorbonne, to get a doctorate, but at the Jesuit college of Louis the Great. This school could not grant a degree – it was forbidden to any school in Paris , save the Sorbonne – but its faculty of one hundred was outstanding, and some of them could help him also in his spiritual formation.

Twenty-four Year Old Founder

As Claude grew more severe with himself, he became also increasingly more kind and charitable toward others: an unmistakable sign of his virtue's authentic character. He befriended the boys who, as chimney-sweeps, earned a pittance for their destitute families, teaching them to read and write, instructing them in religion and helping them in their material needs from the modest allowance his father was giving him. Next, his attention was drawn to the many young theology students who lived wherever they could find a shelter and tried to follow lectures at the university while earning a precarious living by holding the menial jobs that allowed them to stay alive. (It should be noted here that resident seminaries, as we know them, for six years of study and formation were few.) He began by giving them his own meals, satisfying his stomach with a few leftovers from the college tables.

Soon other people offered him help; in particular, the bursar of the college, who told him he could take whatever was left over after the meals of the 600 people boarding at the school. Claude also noticed that these young men needed sound spiritual training and a common shelter. He, therefore, rented a house for them and, at their request, constituted them into a community and seminary. On Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 1703, as an old record states,

“Mr. Poullart des Places . . . , then only an aspirant to the ecclesiastical state, began the establishment of the . . . Community and Seminary consecrated to the Holy Spirit under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin conceived without sin.”

Convinced of his own unworthiness, he kept postponing his ordination until his spiritual guide calmed his fears and then was ordained in December 1707.

Nineteen months later, pleurisy attacked him while famine raged in the city. He died October 2, 1709 , after a short illness, while repeating the prayer, “How lovely are they dwellings, O Lord of Hosts, my soul keeps eagerly longing for the courts of the Lord.” His funeral was that of the poor. He was buried in a pauper's grave, a common ditch that was covered over when it was filled, to be used again some years later.

Although his first successor also died half a year later at the age of twenty-six, the twice-bereaved community survived. Seven of the older seminarians solemnly gathered and elected Fr. Louis Bouic, the only priest among them, as their superior at the age of twenty-six. He would govern the community and seminary for fifty-three years and bring it to a flourishing condition.

The Driving Force of the Congregation

Let us see now what makes his foundation “tick”, the central reference point or driving force that the Congregation received from its founder. We can best describe it as evangelical availability in obedience to the Holy Spirit for the service of the poor and disadvantaged. This charism was and still is the driving force that dominates the Holy Ghost Fathers, or Spiritans, throughout the world. Its members must, of course, show their solidarity with the poor by a frugal lifestyle.

The charism of obedience to the Holy Spirit also has consequences that may seem surprising. Like the wind, God's Spirit blows where He wills unless obstacles are put in His way. Such obstacles are often created by well-meaning people who think that they can indicate in which direction the Spirit points and create channels to be followed, laying them down in numerous regulations, rules and stringent structures. Historians refer to that situation as the conflict between charism and institution or structures, the struggle between ideal and its embodiment. To minimize this danger, the Spiritans' founder let his work remain a movement rather than an organization. It had so little structure that it could barely qualify as a moral body in the eyes of civil law, and it remained as such until Church law obliged it to create more structures in the 19 th century.

A Brief Look at the Congregation's History

In the early decades of its existence, the foundation supplied priests for rural parishes, hospitals, colleges and seminaries, but as soon as possible, it also began to send workers abroad in the missions. In 1732, the year George Washington was born, the first of them arrived in North America; he was soon followed by many others. They worked among the Indians and Acadians. Others went to the Far East: China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Siam and India. In 1775 they arrived in Guiana or Cayenne in South America; four years later the first of a long line set foot on Africa in Senegal.

Our founder also saved the nascent congregation of St. Grignon de Montfort from dying in its infancy. In 1703 he pledged to supply it with priests from his seminary. Until the French Revolution of 1792 about two-thirds of the members of de Montfort's congregation came from that source. In April 1709 our founder also accepted to look after the formation of lay teachers destined to work in isolation in the countryside at the request of St. John Baptiste de la Salle, who opened a special school for this purpose. The death of our founder later in the same year led to the closing of that school.

Before the French Revolution of 1792 did away with all religious orders, about 1,000 Spiritans had worked in various parts of the globe. About twenty of them died “in the odor of sanctity”. The Congregation could be restored in 1805, but continued to be hampered by successive political persecutions at home in France. It was slowly bleeding to death when Providence came to its rescue in the person of Fr. Francis Libermann, a convert Jew. He and all members of his little institute of the Holy Heart of Mary entered the Spiritan Congregation in 1848. His charism was the same as that of the Spiritans, so that he could give it a powerful impulse. Although he died less than four years later, the Spiritan congregation developed into one of the larger religious orders of men, counting over 5,000 members in the 1960s.

It spread all over Europe, North America, the West Indies and large parts of South America, all over Africa, islands in the Indian Ocean, Pakistan and on to Australia, Papua-New Guinea, the Philippines and Taiwan. At home it is engaged heavily in what is now called social work and in education on every level.

In Africa, in particular, the Spiritans' labor was blessed. Its original mission, the Vicariate of the Two Guineas, in West Africa, stretching along 5,000 coastal miles, became the “Mother of all churches” there. And in East Africa, where they began to work in 1862 in the 2,000 coastal miles long mission of Zanzibar; Bagamoyo, located in what is now Tanzania, became “the Mother of all churches” in that part of the continent. Literally thousands of Spiritans devoted their lives to bring the Good News of Christ to the continent. Where there were only a handful of Black Catholics some 150 years ago, there are now about 300 dioceses, mostly staffed by African priests under African bishops, taking care of some 100 million Catholics. Today the Congregation has flourishing provinces there, which greatly offset the personnel losses in the northern parts of the globe that began in the late 1960s. Thus, it can continue its mission today in some sixty countries of the world.