Frederic Ozanam was born into a European culture
deeply affected by the religious cynicisrn of Voltaire and afflicted by social
inequality and class conflict. Voltaire ridiculed the Church and considered
religious worship, especially the Eucharist, a mere civic rite to pacify the masses and maintain social solidarity.
On the contrary, Frederic, with keen
intellectual insight and high social consciousness, viewed life through the lens
of faith, seeing Jesus’ self-offering as the genuine pattern for solidarity
and service within the human community.
As a student at the state-run Sorbonne, this
brilliant, sensitive young man of modest rniddle class background was
confronted daily by the misery of the working poor of Paris, immortalized in
Puccini's La Boheme
and Hugo’s Les Miserables. Unlike the good bishop in Hugo’s novel who invests his silver
in the future of a poor man, the Archbishop of Paris was perceived to be in
league with the King's repression of the working class and inattentive to the
desperate situation of the poor. Frederic challenged his friends at the university: “If we are too young
to intervene in the social struggle, are we
then to remain passive in the rniddle of a world which is suffering and groaning?
No, a preparatory path is open to us. Before doing public good, we can try to do
good to a few. Before regenerating France, we can give relief to a few of her
poor.“
Committed to do more than talk about faith,
Frederic, with a small group of friends, formed the first “Conference of Charity,’ which
met weekly to contribute to a secret collection and then visit the poor in their
homes. This active witness derived from Ozanam’s
faith vision but also from his ”Vincentian preference” for what he called
self-forgetful charity over ostentatious philanthropy. Frederic and his
cornpanions were inspired by Sister Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity, who
served the needy, stood at the barricades with the poor, and mentored these
young students. Today, the world-wide St. Vincent de Paul Society continues this
type of quiet service through its almost one million members.
Frederic knew professional success and professorial achievernent. While he honored his father's wishes and became a lawyer and professor of law, he also pursued his abiding passion for literature. Having earned two advanced degrees, he was a prolific scholar on a broad range of topics from the theory of law to Italian and Gerrnan literature. His journalistic writings are strikingly modern in social analysis, praise of democracy, support of workers' rights, and direct, crisp style. His lectures, books and correspondence document his belief that Christianity and progress, like faith and science, far from being incompatible, are mutually generative.
A loving husband and devoted father, Frederic achieved greatness as a gifted scholar, a dedicated teacher, a generous Christian and a gentle but effective reformer. True to the example of St. Vincent de Paul, he creatively sought to respond to the needy with sensitive charity and to replace class struggle with just relationships.
In the Words of Frederic Ozanam
Frederic recognized the responsibility and the potential of the Church to be a
true leavening force within society. He called his associates to works of
charity and justice. His words, while spoken in the 19th century, speak
with relevance and challenge at the millennium.
Charity
and Justice
The order of society is based on two virtues: justice
and charity. However, justice presupposes a lot of love already, for one needs to love a
rnan a great deal in order ro respect his rights, which limit our
rights, and his liberty, which hampers our liberty. Justice has its limits whereas
charity knows none.
Charity is
the Samaritan who pours oil on the wounds
of the traveler who has been attacked. It is justice’s role to prevent the
attack.
Charity must never look
to the past, but always to the future, because the number of its past works is still very small and
the present
and future miseries that it must alleviate are infinite.
Rights of Workers
Exploitation occurs when
the master çonsiders his
worker not as a partner nor even as an assistant, but as an instrument out of
which he must extract as rnuch service as possible at the smallest possible
price. Yet the exploitation of a man by another man is slavery. The worker-machine
is nothing more than part of capital like the slaves of the ancients. Service
becomes servitude.
Research
andAdvocacy for the Poor
We must
investigate doctrine and measures which would
aim at guaranteeing for workers a correct proportion between labor and rest...
and a pension for their old age.
Social Structures and the Role of Youth
The problem which divides people today is not a political problem; it is a social one. It is a matter of knowing which will get the upper hand, the spirit of selfishness or the spirit of sacrifice; whether society will go for ever-increasing employment and profit, or for everyone devoting themselves to the common good... Many people have too much and still want more. Others do not have enough, or do not have anything at all, and they want to take by force what is not being given to them. A war is threatening between these two groups. On one side, the power of wealth, on the other the force of desperation. We must get in between these two groups, at least to reduce the impact if we cannot stop it. Because we are young, because we are not wealthy, we can more easily fill the role of mediators.
In Frederic's theological vision, the Church (one, holy, catholic and apostolic) had to be thoroughly in, though not of, the world. "We are not blessed with two separate lives... one for seeking the truth and the other for putting it into practice."
One
One only means of salvation remains to us, that is, that Christians, in the name of love, interpose between the two camps (of rich and poor) passing like beneficient deserters from one to the other... communicating mutual charity to all, until this charity, paralyzing and stifling the egotism of both parties, and every day lessening their antipathies, shall bid the two camps arise and break down the barriers of prejudice, and cast aside their weapons of anger and march forth to meet each other, not to fight but to mingle together in one embrace, so that they may form but one fold under one pastor.
Holy
Will we be satisfied to lament the barrenness of the present time, when each bears in his heart a germ of holiness, which a simple desire would be sufficient to develop? If we do not know how to love God as the saints did, it is because we see God with the eyes of faith alone, and faith is so weak. But the poor we see with the eyes of flesh. They are present. We can put our fingers and our hands into their wounds, the marks of the crown of thorns are plainly visible on their heads. There is no place for unbelief here... You poor are the visible image of the God whom we do not see, but whom we love in loving you.
Catholic
A Cathohic university (Louvain) should be a
cause of rejoicing to the Church, to see raised within her yet another monument
to the immortal alliance of Science and Faith.
Apostolic
You have felt the emptiness of material pleasures, you have felt the hunger for truth crying out within you; you have gone for Iight and comfort to the barren philosophy of modern apostles. You have not found food for your souls there. The religion of your forefathers appears before you today with full hands; do not turn away, for it is generous. It also, like you, is young. It does not grow old with the world. Ever renewing itself, it keeps pace with progress, and it alone leads to perfection.
Important Dates
1813
Birth of Frederic in Milan, April 23 to Jean-Antoine, a physician, and
Marie Ozanam.
1815 Move of Ozanam Family to Lyons.
1829 Experiences a “crisis of doubt’ about his faith.
1831
Enters
Sorbonne in Paris to study law.
1833
Establishes
Conference of Charity in April with M. Bailly and other Sorbonne students.
1834 Leads petition ro Archbishop for relevant sermons.
1835
Conference officially
becomes Society of St. Vincent dePaul.
1836
Awarded
Doctor of Laws (Dissertation: Comparison
of
Thomas Becket and Francis Bacon
as
Chancellors of England).
1837 Publishes The Origins of French
Law.
Death of Jean-Antoine
Ozanam, Frederic’s father.
1839 Awarded
Doctorate in Literature (Dissertation: Dante
and’ Catholic
Philosophy in the l3th
Century).
1840 Named Professor of Commercial Laws at
Lyons.
Death of Marie Ozanam, Frederic's mother.
Named Professor of Foreign Languages at Sorbonne.
1841 Marriage to Amelie Soulacroix of Lyons.
1842 Represents the Church in negotiations with the government.
1844 Assumes Chair of Foreign Literature at Sorbonne.
1845 Birth of daughter Marie.
Society is recognized by Pope Gregory XVI.
1847 Publication of German Studies I.
1848 Co-founder of Journal L'ere Nouvelle.
1849 Publication of German Studies II.
1852 Mediates in student riots at Sorbonne.
Resigns from Sorbonne and moves to Leghorn because of ill health.
1853 Publication of Franciscan Poets in Italy in the 13th Century.
Death in Marseilles of kidney ailment, September 8.
1855 Posthumous publication of Civilization in the Fifth Century which received honors from the Academie Francaise.
1997 Declaration of Frederic as "Blessed Frederic" on August 22 in Paris, a step toward canonization and recognized sainthood.
Source:
Vincentian Center for Church and Society, St. John's University, 8000 Utopia
Parkway, Jamaica, New York 11439, U.S.A.