Who was Frederic Ozanam ?

Founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul 1813 - 1853

Saint Vincent de Paul was not the founder of the society that bears his name. The credit for this must go to Frederic Ozanam, a young man who arrived as a law student at the University of Paris soon after the French Revolution. Being a devout and well informed Catholic, he was appalled by the university's general hostility to Christianity and to the Catholic Church in particular because of the conservative stance it had adopted during the Revolution and its dismal efforts to reform in the years that followed.

In responding to the situation, he and a number of other students organised debates and study groups aimed at promoting positive attitudes to Christianity. These were generally well received but one day a participant accused the group of arguing their case well but doing nothing to put their ideas into practice. As a consequence of this remark, Ozanam resolved to start a fellowship of Christian lay people who would immerse themselves in the world of the poor and undertake to help them at some cost to themselves. The organisation spread and was put under the patronage of Saint Vincent de Paul.

The group's first objective was to assist the poor who lived in the 'unbelievable squalor' of the slums of Paris. A report of the time estimated that the average life span of a child of a factory worker was barely nineteen months. In spite of the pressure exerted by the intellectuals in his circles, Ozanam had no programme of social reform. His main concern was to assist people with the bare essentials of survival. The slums were a world as little known to most clergy as it was to the intellectuals who propounded the ideals of 'liberty, fraternity, equality' as if these slogans alone were the panacea of all ills.  In writing to a friend he said, "It is the battle of those who have nothing and those who have too much; it is the violent collision of opulence and poverty that makes the earth tremble under our feet."

After graduating, he became a distinguished and popular lecturer at the Sorbonne. In time, he would match his concern for poverty with a concern for justice. When the workers threw up barricades and turned Paris into a battle zone in 1848, he became a champion of their cause. Although he deplored the violent means they had resorted to, he defended the justice of their actions and insisted that there could be no lasting solution unless efforts were made to address the economic and political structures that perpetuated social inequality. In his view, misery experienced over a long time inevitably leads to violence.

His outspoken stance increased the suspicions of his fellow Catholics and colleagues and left him isolated and discouraged. Broken in health, he resigned from teaching and public activity. He died soon after at the age of forty.

His example of practical charity combined with a genuine concern for justice is a model for our times. The Catholic Church declared him 'Blessed' in 1997. This is the first leg of the official process that leads to canonisation.

Based on Blessed Frederic Ozanam in All Saints by Robert Ellsberg (Crossroad Publishing, 1998).