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 Frederic Ozanam was born into a European culture deeply affected by the religious cynicism 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 middle class background was confronted daily by the misery of the working poor of Paris, immortalized in Puccini's La Boheme and 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 middle 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 companions 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 worldwide St. Vincent de Paul Society continues this type of quiet service through its almost one million members.
 Frederic knew professional success and professorial achievement. 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 German 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 man a great deal in order to 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 considers his workers not as a partner nor even as an assistant, but as an instrument out of which he must extract as much 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 and Advocacy 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 enjoyment 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 beneficent 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? It 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 Catholic 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 light 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.
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Important Dates
1813 - Birth of Frederic in Milan, April 23, to Jean-Antoine 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 the Conference of Charity with other Sorbonne students.
1834 - Leads petition to Archbishop for relevant sermons.
1835 - Conference officially becomes Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
1836 - Awarded Doctor of Laws degree.
1837 - Publishes THE ORIGINS OF FRENCH LAW; death of Frederic's father.
1839 - Awarded Doctorate in Literature.
1840 - Named Professor of Commercial Laws at Lyons; death of Frederic's mother.
1841 - Marriage to Amelie Soulacroix of Lyons.
1842 - Represents 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 - Cofounder of JOURNAL L´ERE NOUVELLE.
1849 - Publication of GERMAN STUDIES II.
1852 - Mediates in student riots at Sorbonne.
1853 - Death in Marseilles of kidney ailment on September 8.
1855 - Posthumous publication of CIVILIZATION IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.
1989 - Society of St. Vincent de Paul established at St. John's University, NYC.
1997 - Declaration of Frederic as "Blessed Frederic" on August 22 in Paris.
With permission of the Vincentian Center For Church and Society
St. John's University, Jamaica, NY
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