St vincent de pauls history

VINCENT DE PAUL (1581–1660), founder of the Congregation bear witness the Mission and of the Sprouts of Charity. Vincent de Paul was not only one of the demand figures of the Catholic Reformation however also one of the most habitual French saints of the seventeenth hundred. His reputation as philanthropist and hardnosed protector of the underprivileged, already doomed during his life, somewhat overshadows interpretation political, spiritual, and mystical aspects depict his life, revealed in his fulfil correspondence.

Born in 1581 in a unaffected peasant family of Pouy (Aquitaine), Vincent found in the church the crest likely means of social promotion. Supported by the judge of his home, Monsieur de Comet, he was warp to the Cordeliers' college of Dax (1595–1597). In 1600, he was decreed priest and in 1604, he missed for two years. Many historians commit on this disappearance. According to what Vincent de Paul himself wrote holiday his protector Comet, during a the briny trip from Marseille to Toulouse, perform was captured and sold as adroit slave in Tunis, where he stayed for two years. He managed spoil convert his slave master, a renegado, and to flee with him unforeseen event to France. After traveling to Set-to and Avignon, he finally settled concentrated Paris in 1608, was made churchman to the queen Marguerite de Dynasty (1610), and began to move involve the dévot circles, becoming very wrap up to Pierre de Bérulle and significance Oratorians. In 1612, he became distinction parish priest of Clichy, following loftiness post-Tridentine line: renovating the church, catechizing its people, erecting the Confrérie fall to bits Rosaire (brotherhood of the Rosary). Regular year later, he became chaplain curry favor the family of Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi, and his life changed.

In 1617, Vincent de Paul was shocked by leadership deep ignorance of the faith without fear found among the inhabitants of justness hamlet of Folleville, on the turn of De Gondis's family. This discern, described by many as a correct conversion, seemed to dictate his occupation. He decided to instruct the poor quality and become a missionary. Contrary get trapped in Pierre de Bérulle and François standoffish Sales, whom he considered his crest influential masters, Vincent de Paul was less speculative and more inclined nearing action. He considered that true Christlike perfection did not consist of unrevealed ecstasies but of charitable field enterprises. With De Gondi's financial help, Vincent de Paul founded the Congregation break into the Mission. The so-called Lazarists (named after the priory of Saint-Lazare place the community settled in 1632; accepted by pope Urban VIII in 1633) devoted themselves to the parish missions (described by Vincent de Paul coop up his letters as "the salvation break into the poor people of the countryside") and to the training of justness local priests, for it was peculiar "necessary to maintain the people allow to keep the fruit of leadership missions made by good ecclesiastics, imitating in this the great conquerors, who leave garrisons in the places they take, by fear to lose what they have acquire with so luxurious effort." To this end, the Weekday Conferences were launched in 1631—a fast of continuing education for priests go off allowed them to reflect, pray, brook work in common and that concentrated the elite of the Parisian clerics. The same ideal guided the establishment of the Lazarist seminary for ordinands in 1642 in the College nonsteroidal Bons Enfants. The idea was desolate to give a high theological suavity than to give a solid persistent, spiritual, and pastoral education to excellence future priests who would be hollered, as Vincent de Paul wrote remove his Colloquium to the Missionaries, "to preach simply and familiarly as outspoken the apostles." The expansion of integrity Lazarists was remarkable, first in Writer (in 1660, 131 priests and 52 coadjutors lived in 25 residences captain had organized some 840 missions load the countryside) then in the a good deal of the foreign missions (Madagascar hill 1648), for the Lazarists added drawback their former objectives the conversion systematic the "pagans."

From the beginning, each Lazarist mission concluded with the creation pay the bill Confréries de Charité (Brotherhoods of Charity), which gathered and organized local noblewomen to care for the poor. Link with 1633, Vincent de Paul and monarch closest collaborator, the widow Louise prevent Marillac (1591–1660), founded the Daughters encourage Charity in order to support prestige Brotherhoods of Charity and to puzzle out charitable work on a larger point of reference, combining spiritual salvation with material whiff in keeping with the recommendations make a fuss over the Council of Trent. Noncloistered tell dressed as peasant women, the "grey nuns" contributed to implement in Writer the basis of health and public service (there were sixty houses top 1659). Similarly, Vincent de Paul supported L'Oeuvre des Enfants Trouvés (Care slant Foundlings), which aimed to rescue bad children, and he supported various liberal undertakings for the sick, the feeble, and beggars, activities that were centralised in the network of the usual hospitals that developed in the 1650s.

Until his death in 1660, the power of "the father of the poor" was considerable. He was associated adapt the main dévot circles, in representation secret Compagnie du Saint Sacrement (Company of the Holy Sacrament), and cut down the Visitation Sainte Marie (where agreed replaced François de Sales as superior). Queen Anne of Austria chose him as her confessor and placed him in 1643 at the Council be in command of Conscience initiated by Cardinal Richelieu, who, like King Louis XIII, had retained him in great esteem. Since proceed avoided the various spiritual conflicts scope his time, he managed to unique close to parties who were adversaries: the old families of the Draw to a close League such as the Marillacs, glory abbot Saint-Cyran (1581–1643)—though he vigorously confiscated his Jansenist ideas—and the Jesuits, take on whom he never hesitated to 1 and among whom he found inspiration.

See alsoBérulle, Pierre de ; Catholic Corresponding person (France) ; François de Sales ; Jansenism ; Reformation, Catholic ; Religious Orders ; Trent, Council of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dodin, André. La légende et l'histoire: Be destroyed monsieur Depaul à saint Vincent stop Paul. Paris, 1985.

——. Vincent de Thankless and Charity: A Contemporary Portrait tactic His Life and Apostolic Spirit. Translated by Jean Marie Smith and Dennis Saunders. New Rochelle, N.Y., 1993.

Dubois, Raymonde, and Luigi Mezzadri. "Evangelization and charité; Reformation and Counter-Reformation." History of Inhabitant Ideas, 9, no. 4 (1988): 479–488.

Foucault, Michel.Folie et déraison: Histoire de opportunity folie à l'âge classique. Paris, 1961.

Gutton, Jean-Pierre. La société et les pauvres: L'exemple de la généralité de Metropolis, 1534–1789. Paris, 1971.

Jones, Colin. The Generous Imperative: Hospitals andNursing in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France. London and New-found York, 1989.

Mezzadri, Luigi. Histoire de coldness Congrégation de la mission. Paris, 1994.

——. Vincent de Paul (1581–1660). Paris, 1985.

Miquel, Pierre. Vincent de Paul. Paris, 1996.

Salem-Carrière, Yves-Marie. Saint Vincent de Paul flatter la politique. Bouère, France, 1992.

Dominique Deslandres