I am Father Louis-María Salle, the second child in a large French family. I was born in the big city of Reims about an hour and a half from Paris. My parents always transmitted the love of God to me before all else. I also received three great blessings in my vocational search:  first was serving as an altar boy at Holy Mass every Sunday; second was being a member of the Boy Scouts, an incomparable work of formation for boys, founded by Robert Baden-Powell, which through especially Father Sevin, a holy Jesuit teacher, it was made a more Catholic formation; and the third was knowing the Benedictine Abbey of Fontgombault in central France where I have a brother who is a monk. The spirituality, ecclesial feeling, charity, and the liturgy (especially the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite) marked me for life.

When I grew up, I studied History at the university for a year and then entered the Saint Martin of Tours Community. However, after five years of formation they advised me to take a year of discernment to serve street children through a beautiful work of evangelization call “Puntos Corazón.”

This work sent me to Honduras in Central America. It was a year and half of blessings during which I received more than I gave. It was during this time that I received “a call within a call” as Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta would say, a call to serve the poor and the smallest among them, the children. My brother-monk told me about the Missionary Servants of the Poor Movement that worked mostly in Peru. I returned from Honduras in 2001 and spent a few months in France preparing myself to go for a year’s experience in Cuzco, Peru. I was accepted by the founder of the Movement, Father Giovanni Salerno, and began my studies at the Holy Mary Mother of the Poor House of Formation in Ajofrin, Toledo, Spain. I finished my studies in theology and, by the mercy of the Lord, made my perpetual vows and was ordained a priest.