Meet Fr. James Cullen, SJ
Founder of the “Pioneers”
125 years ago tomorrow, Father James Cullen (1841-1921), a Jesuit priest, founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart in Dublin, Ireland.
James Aloysius Cullen was born in New Ross, Co. Wexford, and first educated by the Christian Brothers in New Ross before moving to the Jesuit college at Clongowes Wood, Co. Kildare, in April 1856. Beginning in 1861 he was a student at the Carlow College until his ordination as a diocesan priest in 1864, five days after his 23rd birthday - the youngest age permitted by Canon law. It was nearly twenty years later, inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, that he entered the Jesuit novitiate.
In 1883 he took his vows in Dublin and soon earned wide respect for his organizational skills, his devotion to the Sacred Heart, and his concern for temperance. He combined all three in December of 1898 when he, along with four women at Dublin’s St. Francis Xavier Church, established the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, known popularly as “Pioneers.”
By 1950 the Pioneers had grown to nearly a half-million members worldwide and was one of the largest temperance movements ever known.
Pioneers take a lifetime pledge - known as a “heroic offering” - to abstain from alcohol, and are publicly identifiable by a pin depicting the Sacred Heart.
The Pioneers spread to America in the 1950s with chapters first in Birmingham, Alabama and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Today, there are far fewer members than the peak of seventy years ago but each Pioneer continues to carry out the vision of Father James Cullen laid out over a century ago - a vision of abstinence, devotion to the Sacred Heart, and of being an example of sobriety to society at large.
The duty of a Pioneer is to build a society where people live to their full potential. We reach out to those who suffer from alcohol-related harm. The Pioneer, like all Christians, is convinced that the love of God, as revealed in Jesus, is central to their lives. Pioneers are people who kindle the fire of God’s love in the hearts of others. (Pioneer website)