Colombia…4 months later

bcicirel Catholicism, Christianity, DePaul Interfaith Programs, DePaul University, Global Interfaith Movement, Reflection, Seeds of Mission, Service, Social Justice

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(by Justine Carlson)

Human dignity is not negotiable.

This was a nugget of wisdom that I learned back in December while I was in Bogota, Colombia. It speaks volumes as to how one would answer the Vincentian question; What must be done? There is more that needs to be done than I realized. I was catching up with an old friend the other day and he asked me about my trip to South America a couple months back. I was taken back to the place where forgiveness, human dignity, reconciliation, faith, education, and power were normalized and brought into a new light.

 

One of the several greatest lessons I learned in Colombia was how education, religion, politics, and social justice can be intersectional. I am still trying to figure this out today as I witness several minority groups suffering and not provided with the same rights as the majority. As a Roman Catholic, my continuing question is how can I be an ally? How can I help? My time in Colombia has made me appreciate religious diversity, even more so than I did before. While most the country identifies as a Catholic/Christian country, how one lives out their faith there is different based on the individual through education, political participation, giving back to their local communities, and many other ways.

 

Another highlight that I took away from this experience was their approach to nonviolence. In Colombia during this time, part of the national peace agreement had passed, which grants equitable and equal human rights for all. This was a true historical moment for them. One last piece of wisdom that I’ll never forget is that faith is about uncertainty. Similarly, to the United States, many are uncertain of what their future will hold for them. It is not as easy as it sounds, but having a small bit of a hope and/or ounce of faith is how the people in Colombia that were experiencing trauma, homelessness, violence, whatever it may be, continue living the fullest life. Faith through resilience.

Eugène Boré: a letter from Azerbaijan

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History

This letter, which I found recently in the British Library, is from Eugène Boré, one-time Lazarist superior general, penned from Julfa in Azerbaijan on 6 August 1841.

Boré, of course, needs little introduction. At least since 1894, when Léonce de la Rallaye wrote his first biography of the man (see Eugène Boré et les origines de la question d’Orient, Paris 1894), Boré’s contributions to the fields of education, philology and ethnography have been well established. Yet the fruits of his travels, which drew him successively from cities in the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire, deserve deeper scrutiny.

This letter, which seems to have escaped the notice of his biographers, serves as a suitable show-piece for a new project on information gathering and semi-official diplomacy by missionaries, especially the Lazarists, in the Middle East during the nineteenth century. As always the Lazarists were adept at weaving connections of high standing. Several features of this particular missive showcase this. For one, it was addressed to Sir Austen Layard (1817-1894), the famous British archaeologist and diplomat. It seems Boré had created strong links with Layard – who was busy excavating the famous cities of Nimrud and Ninevah near Mosul in the 1840s – for he addresses him in tender language and invites him to stay with him on his journey through Persia.

More importantly, however, is the network of information-gatherers that emerges from the epistle. European travellers were still scarce in this region, and much diplomatic information passed through letters between visiting clergy and hommes de lettres. In one part of the letter Boré writes: “I have learnt that the British Embassy is returning to Teheran near the end of September, or at least so the rumour goes and people are saying that the mission is still entrusted to M. MacNeil.”

The MacNeil in question was, of course, Sir John MacNeil (1795-1883) secretary of the special embassy in Teheran and envoy to Persia up to 1844. This was not the only illustrious name mentioned in Boré’s letter. Later, he mentions that the last letter he received from Layard was passed to him from “Monsieur the Baron de Bode”. The baron in question was Clemen Augustus, Baron de Bode (1806-1887), Russian aristocrat, traveller and writer. (See C.A. de Bode, Travels in Luristan and Arabistan, London 1845).

That two prominent names mentioned here should proceed from the realms of England and Russia is not surprising. Soon, the rivalry between the two nations in Asian politics would become known as the Great Game, a long period of Anglo-Russian confrontation in Iran and elsewhere. Boré was of course no stranger to this: he was famously deputed by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to safeguard French interests at Holy Sites in the Middle East in advance of the Crimean War (1853-1856). On the wider work of travellers like Boré, Layard and de Bode in this prickly period, Elena Andreeva’s edited collection Russia and Iran in the Great Game: Travelogues and Orientalism(London and NY, 2007) is a good start.

To be sure, Boré’s role in many events in this period is well known, even if stray letters such as this one slumber in foreign repositories. As a group, however, the work of the entire Lazarist network in the Middle East remains untilled territory. More surprises may yet come from their labours!

Forthcoming Publication Announcement “In Missouri’s Wilds St. Mary of the Barrens and the American Catholic Church, 1818 to the present.”

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History

From the publisher Truman State University Press
“In 1818, a small group of Catholic clerics established a religious community in southeastern Missouri and opened a school, grounded in its European Vincentian roots but influenced by the isolation of its rural location. St. Mary’s of the Barrens because the first American institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi River and only the fourth Catholic seminary in the United States. Over the years, St. Mary’s emerged as a significant institution whose early leaders played an important role in the development of the Catholic Church on the American frontier. The school’s subsequent history reflected the changing status of the growing American Catholic community. In this history of “the Barrens,” Rick Janet demonstrates how its story reflects the broader sweep of the American Catholic experience.”

Richard J. Janet currently serves as professor of history at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, where he has taught since 1985. He received the PhD in modern European history from the University of Notre Dame. Janet is the author of numerous articles, essays, and reviews (both scholarly and popular). His work on the history of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States is supported by the Vincentian Studies Institute of DePaul University.

ISBN: 978161281982
Available as an ebook and paperback edition.

That Countercultural Virtue

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In this meditation, Fr. Jack Melito, C.M., focuses on the virtue of Simplicity as understood and lived by Vincent de Paul.  Experiencing the God of the Universe while living a life of Simplicity reveals to the practitioner the efficacious nature of that virtue.  In whatever age, a life ordered by the virtue of Simplicity is a life readily identified as countercultural.

“Simplicity: A Countercultural Value” is a chapter from the book Windows on His Vision (pp. 146-147) available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/windows/2/

It is also available as an ebook here: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/8/

English-language Vincentian Annals now available online

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History

DePaul University Library and DePaul’s Office of Mission and Values are proud to announce the digital publication of The Annals of the Congregation of the Mission: A Collection of Edifying Letters. Volumes may be viewed and downloaded for free athttp://via.library.depaul.edu/annals_en/.

The thirty-two volumes of The Annals (1894-1926) represent the English-language translation of those same years of Les Annales de la Congregation de la Mission, a French periodical published by the Congregation of the Misson via the Vincentian motherhouse in Paris. The letters, communiques, and updates included in each issue were meant to keep the community apprised of the activities of their confreres around the world.

Modeled by the Vincentians on Les Annales de la Propagation de la Foi (published by the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, a Catholic administrative body that oversees Church missionary activity), The Annals, while successful, proved to be too much translation work for the Vincentians (each volume running approximately 700 pages). Publication ended in 1926.

Available digitally for the first time in English, the information included in these thirty-two volumes is invaluable in understanding the Vincentian community and Catholic missionary work during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The lives and deeds of countless Vincentian priests and Daughters of Charity are detailed. Moreover, the volumes contain eyewitness accounts of missionaries, chaplains, and battlefield nurses who experienced conflicts including the First Sino-Japanese War, the Philippine Revolution and Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, and most importantly World War I.
Volumes are in the process of being digitized and made available online by DePaul University Library, where the volumes reside as part of the Vincentian Studies Collection.

This project began in 2016, with the first eight volumes (one quarter of the print run) currently available. The next eight volumes will be available in early 2018, and so on. The digitization of all thirty-two volumes of The Annals is due to be completed in 2020.

For more information about this project, The Annals, DePaul’s Vincentian Studies Collection, or the Vincentian family, please contact DePaul’s Vincentian Librarian, Andrew Rea, at area1@depaul.edu.

Charity is a Verb

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The Vincentian Question, “What Shall Be Done?” is framed in such a way that its answer implies action.  When offering guidance on Charity to his confreres, the Daughters, the Confraternities, and to us, Vincent is clear: “Love of God and of neighbor is authenticated in visible action.” Charity is the true characteristic of the Love of God; it cannot remain idle.  In fact, a life dedicated to Charity demands fearless, unending work involving the “sweat of our brows and the expense of our arms.

“Charity is a Verb” is a chapter from the book Windows on His Vision (pp. 127-128) available at: https://via library.depaul.edu/windows/2/

It is also available as an ebook here: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/8/