The second part of the article analyzes the evolution of the Vincentian institutions after the death of Saint Vincent and their relationship with historical changes, such as the French Revolution and the rise of industrialization. Frederic Ozanam is highlighted for his insight in addressing the social question, focused on the struggle between wealth and poverty, and his call for Christians to side with the poor. Ozanam argued that charity should complement justice to address the structural causes of poverty, anticipating what would later become the “preferential option for the poor.” However, the Church and the Vincentian institutions largely maintained a defensive stance, focusing on personal sanctity and hierarchical order, which limited their response to social changes. It is acknowledged that Vincentian missions continued their work in various regions of the world, although with attitudes that did not always fully reflect Saint Vincent’s original spirituality.

The Past and Future of the Vincentian Spirit (cont.)

2. The Later Evolution and Intervening Crisis

The three institutions which embodied the spirit of St Vincent in France, where they were founded, had lasted 130 years after the death of the founder. The French Revolution was quick to decree the end of the Congregation of the Mission, the Daughters of Charity and the Ladies/Confraternities of Charity. A few years later another decree brought the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity back into existence. The Ladies of Charity had to wait another 50 years for their restoration through the efforts of Father Etienne. Today (written in 1995), these three institutions enjoy a worldwide expansion, more than in any previous century.

The fact of vigorous numerical growth in principle speaks in favor of the legitimacy of the Christian experience of St. Vincent de Paul. Without a doubt, the spirituality of St. Vincent is solidly Christian. To say it another way, it is a very legitimate interpretation of the Gospel that has borne the test of time. Legitimate, on the one hand, and rich, on the other hand, because its power of attraction for so many baptized Christians, clergy and lay, has been demonstrated through more than three centuries. It is flexible and adaptable to changing times, and, as far as anyone can see, is rising to the challenge and giving inspiration for the present time in the life of the Church and the world. The number of the baptized today who explicitly call upon St. Vincent for inspiration in their own Christian lives numbers over 1,000,000. This number means a little more than one Vincentian member for every thousand Catholics.

Within a few years after the French Revolution– for all those who are not inclined to be blinded by pining continually for the glories of the Old Regime– it was obvious that the political revolution and the economic-industrial revolution obligated the Church to reconsider its ancient mission in new terms and to redefine afresh its place in a new society. Though Frederic Ozanam was not the only one who attempted this, nor was France the only country where the challenge was taken up, it does not seem exaggerated to affirm that Ozanam was one of the earliest to see the problem and define it with great clarity. Look at this text of 1836:

The question which stirs up the world today is not a question of persons, neither is it a question of political form, but a social question; the struggle of those who have nothing and of those who have too much, the violent battles of the opulent and the poor, that shakes the floor beneath our feet. The obligation of us Christians is to place ourselves in between those irreconcilable enemies…and to get equality to reign as much as possible among men… and charity to attain that which justice cannot produce by itself (Lettres, I 239).

There you have it with complete clarity: the analysis of a new society. It was not an “organic” society, like the old one, but a society divided into classes (that also was true of the old society: the estates) confronting each other, not for political reasons or religious ones (as much as it was in the old regime), but because of the unjust distribution of national wealth. To the degree this was true in the old regime, but it was legitimized easily by philosophical, political and even religious concepts (Christian resignation, the will of God…), ideas which were swept away without pity by the winds of revolution. The injustice now appeared in all its cruel nakedness, without the ideological coverings which had concealed inhuman feelings of shame.

Ozanam, also with complete clarity, described the role of Christians in this new society; a role, which is to be no less than treating themselves as true believers in Jesus Christ; as peacemakers and intermediaries in the social struggle. Reconciliation at any price, however, which would leave unjust structures intact was not an acceptable solution, rather it would have to be reconciliation built upon the fundamentals of equality and justice “…as soon as possible among people.” Still there is even more: charity needs to lead to action which does not merely alleviate or conceal the ravages of injustice, as happened before, but precisely to go even further, to obtain “that which justice is not able to do by itself.”

Furthermore, the intermediary role of the Christian to bring about a resolution of the structural injustices of society, according to Ozanam, was not to be done from a stance of what we might call neutrality, but rather from what we now call a preferential option for the poor. Note his vigorous expression: “Let us pass over to the side of ‘the barbarians’” that is

…go among the people who do not know us; let us help them not only with alms which tie people down but also with the creation of institutions destined to free them and make them better… Let us pass over to the side of the barbarians (note: It is parallel to what the Church did at the end of the decadent Roman Empire)… in order to convert them into true citizens and to give them dignity capable of possessing the liberty of the children of God (Le correspondant, February 10, 1848, pp. 412 ss.).

His use of the word “barbarians,” without meaning to do so, greatly scandalized well meaning Catholics. However, Ozanam did not downplay the force of his expression when he wrote to explain his thinking in a letter to a friend:

In saying “Let us pass over to the side of the barbarians,” I am asking that, in place of being married to the interests of a selfish middle-class (bourgeoisie), we devote ourselves to the common people. It is among the common people that I see enough remnants of faith and morality which can save our society, something the upper classes have already lost (Lettres, III, p. 379).

He was even more explicit in a letter to his priest brother dated May 23, 1848:

In place of seeking an alliance with the middle-class whose time is up, let us support the common people, who are the true allies of the Church, poor like her, rejected like her, blessed with all the blessings of the Savior.

This expressed with great clarity something which more than 120 years later came to be treated theologically and in a systematic manner (specifically by the theology of liberation), and entered into the general consciousness of the Church after the Second Vatican Council, that is, the preferential option for the poor.

Did such an option as Ozanam expressed it have something to do with the fundamental posture of St. Vincent de Paul? Definitely, and in a deeply rooted way, for Vincent attributed such an option to Jesus Christ himself, as a way of caring for his people:

You see, brothers, that the essential aim o f Our Lord was to work for poor persons. When He went to others, it was only in passing. (CCD XI:122).

Since there is a harmony of spirit between Frederic and Vincent in what is most profound, it is not strange that we find many examples of this harmony of spirit in specifics. Notice the strongly Vincentian flavor of this text of Ozanam:

see the poor with the eyes of the flesh; there they are and we are able to put our fingers in their sores; the marks from the crown of thorns are visible on their foreheads……. You are the sacred image of that God whom we do not see, and since we cannot love him in some other way, we love him in your persons…You are our lords and we will be your servants (Lettres, I p. 243).

It is necessary to admit publicly that there is nothing in the official writings of the Congregation of the Mission nor of the Daughters of Charity throughout the 19th century that comes close to either the clarity of Ozanam’s analysis or to the purity of his Vincentian sensitivity applied to modern times. An admirable figure, a contemporary of Ozanam who was indeed close to him, was Sister Rosalie Rendu. She was an inspiration and animator of the first works for the poor of Ozanam and his companions in the foundation of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, but she was not understood by the authorities of either of the religious communities.

Perhaps there were historical circumstances which explain or give a reason for this. For example, it is possible to think that the major superiors had their hands full with the concerns of reestablishing the structures of both religious communities, very much damaged by the French Revolution and its after effects. Without a doubt, what gave direction to the activities of Father Etienne throughout his life, which he accomplished with stunning success, was restoration. Ozanam and he were contemporaries.

Father Etienne, a man of great practical insight, knew very well that these new times offered an historic opportunity to renew and to make relevant the structures of the Congregation:

Is there not in this new situation a totally new terrain on which the Company can freely design and reconstruct its edifice on conditions very favorable for the freedom of its movements and for the development of its activities? (Recueil des principales circulaires des supérieurs généraux de la CM., t. l, p. 399).

The contemporary historical situation and the possibilities of the future were seen with such clarity. Strangely, Father Etienne believed that the best way to make use of these possibilities was by a strict return to the text of the Common Rules, a return that guaranteed the historical immutability of the Congregation:

The Company ought not to be subject to the changes and alternatives which institutions made by human hands suffer, because our Rules move us to the practice of the evangelical counsels, which participate in some fashion in the immutability of the Gospel itself…One ought not to introduce the smallest change into our Rules and Constitutions; since one is able to observe them with the same fruitfulness and with the same fidelity in the present as in the past (Recueil…, t. III p. 135).

Ozanam, however, reacted differently to the changes toward more democratic forms of social organizations, which resulted from the 1848 Revolution (the Second Republic) when the monarchy fell for the third time in 50 years:

We have accepted the republic not as an evil of the times to which one must resign oneself, rather as progress which must be defended.… Providence does not destroy except in order to build up, and the more it renews the earth, the more we ought to think of the foundations deepening for a new order (L’ere nouvelle, n. 16, May 1, 1848).

And a few days earlier:

Everyone is in agreement that if ever the finger of God has been seen in the human story, it is in the revolution which just took place…What I have learned from history gives me reason to believe that democracy is the natural end of political progress and that God is leading towards it (ibid. n. 1, April 1, 1848).

He was reading the signs of the times with keen insight and fidelity. However, not everybody was in agreement with his vision, neither those in the Church nor those outside the Church. How could the true monarchists or the churchmen who were pining for the past marriage between the throne and the altar be in agreement? Father Etienne, although he in an earlier letter of January 1849 manifested some indecision about how to interpret the recent revolutionary movements without excluding a possible action from Providence, wrote to the entire Congregation in November of that same year:

The principle that excites people, which brings catastrophe to the world, is pride and a spirit of independence. The cause of all revolutions, which topple thrones to the ground and turn empires upside down, is found in this saying from Scripture which is placed in the mouths of the impious: I will not serve, I will not surrender…The base upon which the social order rests is respect for authority (Recueil…, t. 111,p. 141).

He applies the same idea about authority to the Congregation of the Mission in affirming that authority “is the base upon which the entire edifice of the Congregation rests” (Ibid.…t. III, p 169). One might dare to object, even timidly, that a person could legitimately think the base of the edifice of the Company is not authority, but rather following Christ in the evangelization of the poor; and the constitutive principle of all society is not respect for authority, but the search for the common good.

It has been commonly held for a long time now that throughout the 19th century and a good part of the 20th century the Church adopted a defensive posture, a retreat into itself in the face of an avalanche of lifestyles and ideas that invaded European society from the Enlightenment onwards. The most visible and most notorious sign of this posture was the Syllabus (of Errors) of Pius IX, who attacked head-on all those ideas or ways of social acting which could be called “modern.” (Pius IX certainly owed his fame at the beginning of his pontificate to being sympathetic to the new currents then hailed with enthusiasm by the more open segments of the Church, among them Ozanam.)

There was, without a doubt, in such a posture, motives and legitimate aspects of safeguarding the essentials, which needed to be maintained at all costs in order to avoid the very real danger of an amorphous dissolution of fundamental Christian values. What resulted, however, was the posture of a siege-mentality, profound and long lasting. Only with the Second Vatican Council did the Church leave behind in an official way its wintertime hibernation in order to return to the world which it had to save, as Paul VI expressed with such depth and clarity in the closing address of the Council (n. 14). He was questioning himself and he was asking the Church present at the Council: “Has the mind of the Church perhaps been diverted toward the anthropocentric orientation of modern culture?” He himself responded: “Diverted, no; turned toward, yes.” It was the same as openly admitting two things:

• before the Council, the Church had its back to the anthropocentric orientation of modern culture;
• turning toward the anthropocentric orientation of modern culture does not mean a diversion for the Church, since

our humanism is Christian, our Christianity is theocentric; so much so that we are able to affirm that in order to know God it is necessary to know humanity (n. 16).

It is not necessary to add that the communities founded by St. Vincent were no exception to the general posture of retreating from the new society and the new anthropocentric orientation. I indicated above the distinguishing Christocentric-anthropocentric character of the spiritual experience of St. Vincent. Can it be honestly said that the following words of another Superior General, the successor of Father Etienne, namely Father Fiat, are faithful to the true spiritual vision of St. Vincent:

The first end of the little Company is the sanctification of its members, and as such, it ought to be the primary object of our concern; all the others ought to be subordinate (December 4, 1879, circular letter addressed to superiors. The emphasis is, of course, ours).

A true disciple of St. Vincent, then, according to Father Fiat, when evangelizing the poor, should be thinking above all of his own personal sanctification. It is a return to the egocentricity (the egocentricity seen, however, as “spiritual”) and the theocentrism of the youthful Vincent, the same theocentrism that is seen in the spiritual writings of the 19th century when speaking of personal sanctity. Is what Father Fiat wrote at heart compatible with the mystical-spiritual-Christian vision of St. Vincent de Paul, “to leave God for God”?

In all that I have been saying I do not intend in any way whatsoever to cast a shadow of doubt on the Vincentianism of either Father Etienne or Father Fiat. The Superiors General of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity actually distinguished themselves by having very strongly and very positively influenced the life and growth of both communities. To a great extent, we continue today because of the inheritance that they left us. Furthermore, it would have been too much to ask that the two Little Companies would have opposed the general attitude of the Church and of the great religious orders. The critical observations that we have made refer more to the modes of expression that proceed from them and shape certain mental attitudes which had a real influence on our subsequent life.

It is also necessary to add that neither of the two communities retreated completely from the emerging world. This world also included Ethiopia, the Far East, the Near East, the United States, the working classes of the English industrial cities, countless asylums, hospitals, leprosariums, and schools for the poor, where Missionaries and Daughters continued to express in their daily lives and in their ministries the best of the spirituality of the founder.

One might have hoped for an end to the mental attitudes of isolationism and rejection of the world by the end of the 19th century when Leo XIII published the first great social encyclical (1891), which called for a significant conversion of Christian conscience toward the social and political dimensions of faith. But this did not happen, as was lamented 40 years later in another social encyclical, that of Pius XI. This change did not occur in the church as a whole; nor did it occur in the institutions of St. Vincent de Paul as a whole.

Jaime Corera C. M.
Source: Reavivemos el Espíritu Vicenciano: Semana de Estudios Vicencianos, XXII (CEME, Salamanca, 1995).

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