Ozanam as forerunner of social Catholicism

The international site of the Vincent dePaul Society features a study which says “(Ozanam)…was also the Vincent de Paul for the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in France, and one of the forerunners of social Catholicism. ”
Although the Conference of Charity (1833) initially arose from a desire to unite  in faith students from the provinces who had come to Paris, the gradual  discovery by some of them of the “social issue”, that is poverty born of  industrialisation, owed much to the visits they made to the tenements of the  poor. Ozanam’s brother, a priest6, showed him the concept of the “lay
apostolate in the world” (1835). The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul7 was  founded by lay people, was run by them, and did not involve the Church. This  made it quite different from Pius XI’s Catholic Action. The historical debate over  whether indeed Ozanam was “the” founder of the Society, is now concluded,  with the merits of both parties, M. Bailly as well as Ozanam given their due  recognition. The latter had the most profound concept of charity, and the  personal visit to the poor as the point of mutual exchange, when both participants are recipients of the benefits. At one time professor of commercial  law at Lyon (1841-1842) then involved in practical work arising from the  revolutionary events of February to autumn 1848, this socially-aware Catholic  (there were others), and democrat (much rarer) was searching for a third way,  between economic liberalism, much too English to please him, and state  interventionism, to which as a liberal he objected. But there must also be  justice, and the Christian is a mediator between rich and poor. He therefore  made his own proposals: graduated income tax, for which the Chambers would  only vote in 1914 and free associations of workers, without deciding between a  corporation and a trade union, a proposal taken up by Leo XIII in Rerum  Novarum (1891).

Ozanam, who was won over to the idea of a Christian  Republic, and who believed that the motto “Liberty, equality, fraternity” was inspired by the model of the early Church, was not in any way a socialist, since  he saw socialism’s promise of happiness on earth as ignoring the reality of  sorrow, sickness and death. Given industrial progress, and detecting already  the beginnings of uniformity in products, dress and manners, he stood apart  from both merciless critics and the blind admirers9. He clearly saw both faces of progress.

Source and full article

“Let us stand side by side with the poor”

The German painter and priest, Sieger Köder, painted a 4 by 4 wall mural in the Frederic Ozanam room in the St. Vincent parish church in Graz, Austria. With great sensitivity and ability, he portrayed the commitment of Frederic Ozanam (1813-1853), the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, to the poor.