Père Paul CHARPENTIER

In his apostolic mission in the working world

Pierre-Louis Charpentier was born at Bury in the department of Oise on January 23, 1914. He lived at Levallois from 1920 to 1938. He attended Christian Brother’s elementary school. Having become a draughtsman in 1929, he joined the J.O.C. (Christian Youth Workers). He became the permanent secretary of Father Michel Cornillie, A.A., chaplain of the Paris-North Federation, and participated actively in starting up the Federation. When he left, it was composed of forty sections in a large Northern suburban area which also included several Paris districts. Having felt a desire to become a priest, the young man completed his education at Saint-Denis as a late vocation and then, in 1936, entered the Assumptionist novitiate of Les Essarts where he was known as Brother Paul.

After making his first profession on October 3, 1937, he studied philosophy and theology at Lormoy in the department of Essonne. He was ordained to the priesthood on March 24, 1946, by Bishop Pie Neveu with a group of 19 Assumptionists and assigned to the Saint Etienne de Sèvres Mission, better known under the title “LA CLOCHE” which had been launched by Fathers Cornillie and Santu. In this setting, Father Paul was appointed successively federal chaplain of the J.O.C. and the J.O.C.F. of Juvisy-sur-Orge in the Essonne department and of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in the Val de Marne department. Then he exercised the same functions at Versailles in the department of Yvelines and became the regional chaplain for the two departments of Seine-et-Oise and Seine-et-Marne. Father Frossard empowered him to be a missionary of labor.

In his Assumptionist responsibilities

Suddenly appointed Provincial Superior of Paris after the unexpected death of Fr. Louis-Henri Bélard in February 1957, Father Paul encouraged within the Province and the whole Congregation what had been the strong and motivating sources of his existence up to that time : a greater presence in working-class circles ( mission at Saint-Etienne and the Loire),  to open up the Assumption to collaboration with the laity, to diversify the types of formation in educational institutions and the scholasticates of the Province. His pastoral experience opened him to other broader responsibilities as well: Father Paul was a member of the standing Committee for religious in France. . . .In 1964 the congregation called him to Rome to the position of Assistant General. On Thursday, May 29, 1969, Fr. Paul Charpentier was elected Superior General, the successor of Fr. Wilfrid Dufault, in the context of the ‘extraordinary’ Chapter which intended to take up the new spirit of Vatican Council II :  a broad decentralization of the Congregation, the installation of two provinces, those of Spain and the Congo, the overhaul of the Rule of Life, the extension of the international character of the Assumption, taking into account the diversity of cultures and languages, there elaboration of new forms of unity among diversity. . . .

The new General Council of 1969 was almost entirely reshaped with the election of Fathers Dionisio Solano, Leander De Leeuwe ( replaced in 1971 by Fr. Serafinus Tillemans), Noël Bugnard and Augustine Danby,  while Fr. Alessandro Bombieri  replaced Fr. Domitien Meuwissen as General Secretary and Fr. Félicien Sleutjes replaced Fr. Farne as Procurator. The Assumption owes Fr. Paul Charpentier the creation of the newsletter A.R.T. Informations which came to replace the interim Lettre à la Famille, laid to rest in 1964.

Father Touveneraud shouldered the tasks of the Archives and of the Postulation. Difficulties were not lacking in that period of effervescent post-conciliar adaptations In Brazil, a serious crisis erupted with the arrest of religious who were working among the laboring class (1969).  In every Province, as a result of the changing times and ideas, the alumniate format ceased to exist. Many structures which were characteristic of the history of the Congregation vanished. It is the era of restructurings and closings, some of them painful. The most notable, if not the most heartrending, concerned Notre Dame de France in Jerusalem, caught up in the diplomatic-politico tangle of the Near East. In 1971-72, the institution was in the hands of the Holy See which turned it into an international Center. The change in mentality which sparked the break-up of large communities went hand in hand with calling into question values and practices such as the mass exodus of young generations of Assumptionists. While he was at the head of the Congregation from 1969 to 1975, Father Paul was thrust headlong into the crisis which shook the European churches. No foundation on new soil left its mark on that period, resources of personnel decreased, and scarce were the gleams of vocations.

A life still active

Very discreet by temperament, Father Paul Charpentier left office in 1975, secretly hoping that a second term not be given to him. In February 1975, he joyfully went to Saint Peter’s in Rome with the considerable delegation of Religious of the Assumption to participate in the beatification ceremony of Mother Marie-Eugénie de Jésus. After the Chapter held at Les Essarts (April 1975), Father Paul was assigned to the Provincial house in Paris, on Denfert-Rochereau Avenue, where as a priest-religious and associate director-general , he oversaw the creativity at Bayard and the realities of that enterprise. Upon retiring in 1985, he continued to lend an attentive hand to

La Foi Aujourd’hui and Vermeil. It was in the privacy of Denfert-Rochereau that, on March 24, 1996, he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. Experiencing with age some difficulty in mobility, but unwilling to leave the Paris region and all his ties there, the octogenarian Father Paul obtained permission in 2001 to enter Marie-Thérèse House for the elderly priests of the diocese of Paris across the street from the Provincial House. He died there on April 27, 2007 surrounded by his brother Assumptionists.

(Extract from the biographical note in Petit Manuel Histoire de l’Assomption, pages 61-62, of Father Jean-Paul Périer-Muzet and the drawing by Brother Michel Bellanger, A.A.,            

p. 63. Collection of the Novitiate of Juvisy.)