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| Blessed Frédéric Ozanam |
The feast of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam is celebrated on September 9. Pope John Paul II beatified him on August 22, 1997. The following biographical snippet is taken from the SSVP Canadian Rule and Statutes.
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam is recognized as the main founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. He was that rare type of individual of intellectual genius and extraordinary holiness. He was a husband and father, professor and researcher, journalist and author, apologist and defender of the faith. Above all, he personified the Good Samaritan.
Antoine Frédéric Ozanam was born in Milan, Italy, on April 23, 1813, where his parents, residents of Lyon, France, had moved temporarily. His parents were devout Catholics who passed on to young Frédéric a deep love of God and the poor. After graduating from high school at the Royal College of Lyon, he moved to Paris to study law as his father wished. There, he was confronted with a society in deep turmoil and detached from its faith, as a result of the Revolution of 1830. Guided by André-Marie Ampère, an eminent scientist and Catholic, he came to the unshakable certitude that Christianity was the only remedy to cure the evils of his time.
He gathered around him students of like mind and faith and they confronted faculty members of the Sorbonne University who attacked their faith. He persuaded the Archbishop of Paris to have Father Henri Lacordaire, a renowned preacher, deliver a series of lectures at Notre-Dame Cathedral. The success of those lectures, or conferences, was overwhelming and the Conférences de Notre-Dame were launched.
Ideas about social justice were promoted in the Tribune Catholique, a newspaper founded in 1832 by Emmanuel Bailly. A literary circle, La Société des bonnes études, was linked to this newspaper. The aim of this circle was to develop among Catholics a taste for historical, philosophical and religious research. Ozanam had a similar idea and he and his friends became active in what became known as the Conférences d’histoire. It developed into a dynamic forum of discussion and research at the university. One March night in 1833, a fellow student who was a non-Catholic, challenged Frédéric and friends. His question was “What are you doing for them (the poor), you and your fellow Catholics…? Show us your works!” Ozanam knew that faith must be translated into action and that, like the apostles, they needed to evangelize by the practice of charity. He rallied the group when he cried out, “The blessing of the poor is that of God…let us go to the poor.”
One evening, on April 23, 1833, Frédéric and five other students met in the office of Mr. Bailly and the “Conference of Charity” was born. They asked Sister Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul to teach them how to minister to the poor with love and respect, and she did so with much kindness. By 1834, the conference had more than 100 members. Taking the saint as an example to follow, it renamed to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and placed it under the protection of the Blessed Virgin.
... In addition to the service he gave to the poor, he researched the conditions of the working classes and defended their rights as human beings and workers. He co-founded the newspaper l’Ère Nouvelle (New Era) to propagate his social and political ideas. Ozanam was one of the first to formulate the idea of a “natural salary” to claim compensation against unemployment and accidents, and to ask that a pension be guaranteed to workers.
From the Canadian Rule and Statutes of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.