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Their mission was humble and simple: to reach the poor country people, who suffered from ignorance of their faith, a debased clergy, and poverty. In response, Vincent De Paul defined the vocation of his “Little Company” as preaching local missions for free, educating the clergy, and working to relieve the people’s poverty. Soon, however, this vocation was complicated by commands to minister to royal families, including Louis xiv of France and the kings and queens of Poland, which would embroil the Vincentians in international and ecclesiastical politics. In addition, they would begin dangerous foreign missions, such as ministering to the Christian captives of the Barbary pirates, the d...
This second volume begins with the dawn of the eighteenth century, and relates how the Congregation of the Mission, founded by St. Vincent de Paul, worked to remain faithful to his vision while adapting itself to the demands of ecclesiastical and political life in France, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Portugal, overseas missions in North Africa and the Mascarenes, as well as the missions taken up after the suppression of the Jesuits in the Middle East and China. Among other problems, the Missioners found themselves in the middle of fights over Jansenism, but tempered by the success of the canonization of Saint Vincent de Paul. This is an important, down-to-earth side of history not often told.
The quest for Christian unity has traditionally been initiated at the international level between official leaders of Christian denominations, with the effects of their dialogue expected to trickle down to local Christian communities. In Grassroots Ecumenism, Karen Petersen Finch upends this process, proposing an approach to Christian unity that begins in your neighborhood. Finch draws directly from her experience equipping everyday Christians to know their own Christian tradition more thoroughly and to engage thoughtfully with separated Christians down the street and around the corner.
Their mission was humble and simple: to reach the poor country people, who suffered from ignorance of their faith, a debased clergy, and poverty. In response, Vincent De Paul defined the vocation of his “Little Company” as preaching local missions for free, educating the clergy, and working to relieve the people’s poverty. Soon, however, this vocation was complicated by commands to minister to royal families, including Louis xiv of France and the kings and queens of Poland, which would embroil the Vincentians in international and ecclesiastical politics. In addition, they would begin dangerous foreign missions, such as ministering to the Christian captives of the Barbary pirates, the d...
THE SUBTITLE OF THIS SIXTH AND FINAL VOLUME of The Vincentians, “Internationalization and Aggiornamento (1919–1980),” describes the growth and change of the Congregation of the Mission in the twentieth century. Formerly European in focus, the provinces of the Congregation gained their own voice. Membership in mission lands, such as China, Brazil, and Ethiopia, surged, as local vocations joined their European confreres. The same is true of maturing provinces elsewhere. St. Vincent de Paul’s congregation became internationalized in both outreach and membership. The Vincentians in these recent decades also tasted the bitterness of persecution. The Congregation was suppressed at various ...
The French Revolution nearly destroyed the Vincentians in France, and those in most other countries were isolated, persecuted in every degree from niggling regulations to imprisonment and martyrdom, and sometimes squeezed into oblivion. To these external miseries were added painful internal schisms: the Italians, abetted by other countries and the Holy See, pushed to center the Congregation in Rome; interdicts against communication with foreign superiors forced provinces in many countries to act autonomously; national pressures to swear loyalty and conform to compromising regulations created splits within the community and threatened to divide the Daughters and separate them from their brothers. Reduced membership and funding crippled the Vincentians’ efforts as they emerged from the worst of the state obstructions. Nevertheless, they began rebuilding and even made struggling beginnings in overseas missions, notably the United States, Brazil, the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, and China, where the martyrdom of two missionaries galvanized interest in this distant and challenging mission.
THE SUBTITLE OF THIS VOLUME is “An Era of Expansion, (1878–1919).” It reflects the reality of the Congregation of the Mission under the leadership of Antoine Fiat, the superior general who governed the Community longer than St. Vincent de Paul. Like the founder, Fiat was a man of both prayer and action. Also like the founder, Fiat was often hesitant and delayed final decisions. His confreres spread to new missions, such as the republics of Central America and Argentina, and several missions or provinces had grown large enough to be given more autonomy, such as the two American provinces, the Antilles, Barcelona, Ecuador, Belgium and Holland, Madagascar, and Colombia. China continued to...
The subtitle of the sixth and final volume of The Vincentians, Internationalization and Aggiornamento (19191980), describes the growth and change of the Congregation of the Mission in the twentieth century. Formerly European in focus, the provinces of the Congregation gained their own voice. Membership in mission lands, such as China, Brazil, and Ethiopia, surged, as local vocations joined their European confreres. The same is true of maturing provinces elsewhere. St. Vincent de Paul's congregation became internationalized in both outreach and membership. The Vincentians in these recent decades also tasted the bitterness of persecution. The Congregation was suppressed at various times in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Its members often reacted by moving elsewhere, thus furthering the internationalization of the Vincentian charism.