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Frédéric Ozanam: Systemic Thinking, and Systemic Change

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The terms “systemic thinking” and “systemic change” were not used in Frederic Ozanam’s day, but aspects of his perspective and some of his methods for combating poverty fall under those categories. Peter Senge’s framework for systemic thinking is applied to Ozanam’s work. This article also describes how Ozanam’s efforts correspond to strategies identified in the Vincentian publication Seeds of Hope: Stories of Systemic Change. In Ozanam’s view, poor persons should be treated with dignity, and he had a practical understanding of how poverty could be alleviated. The organizational model and processes of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul are explained. It was important to Ozanam to create a flexible worldwide network that could use experience to form sustainable solutions to poverty. There was reciprocity to the Society’s charity. Poor persons were empowered, and the Society’s members were transformed in their attitudes and grew in holiness through service and theological reflection. To bring about a fairer and more charitable world, both individuals and society had to be transformed.

“Frederic Ozanam: Systemic Thinking, and Systemic Change” is an article published in the Vincentian Heritage Journal, Volume 32, Issue 1, Article 4 (2014) and is available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol32/iss1/4

 

Vincentiana Purchase of the Week: Rare Rosalie Rendu Holy Card

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This rare late 19th century postcard of Rosalie Rendu does not use the familiar mature portrait image of Rosalie but pictures Rosalie as a younger sister. There is also a scene from the barricades of the Revolution of 1848, and a scene with two members of what is presumably the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. One of these gentlemen can be presumed to be Frederic Ozanam.

DRMA Spring Lecture 2015

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Title: Romantic Catholics: Frédéric and Amélie Ozanam, Marriage, and the Catholic Social Vocation

Speaker: Carol Harrison, Ph.D. professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Author of the book: Romantic Catholics: France’s Post-revolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith.

Marriage to Amélie Soulacroix in 1841 transformed Frédéric Ozanam’s sense of his obligations to the society in which he lived. The sacrament of marriage in general and the particular marital relationship that Amélie and Frédéric developed were central to his understanding of the Catholic social vocation. The younger Ozanam valued fraternal ties among male friends above all, and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, founded in 1836, reflected this attachment to an egalitarian world of bachelor men. As Amélie’s husband, however, Frédéric came to see society as analogous to the family and he perceived his obligations to society as parallel those he owed his family: love, respect, and care for the weak. Ozanam carried this mature view of society into the Revolution of 1848, and it informed his confidence that French Catholics could participate in the work of the new republic by directing it toward a social mission that drew on charitable traditions infused with a modern sense of justice and democracy.

DRMA Spring Lecture, 2015

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Title: Romantic Catholics: Frédéric and Amélie Ozanam, Marriage, and the Catholic Social Vocation

Speaker: Carol Harrison, Ph.D. professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Author of the book: Romantic Catholics: France’s Post-revolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith.

Marriage to Amélie Soulacroix in 1841 transformed Frédéric Ozanam’s sense of his obligations to the society in which he lived. The sacrament of marriage in general and the particular marital relationship that Amélie and Frédéric developed were central to his understanding of the Catholic social vocation. The younger Ozanam valued fraternal ties among male friends above all, and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, founded in 1836, reflected this attachment to an egalitarian world of bachelor men. As Amélie’s husband, however, Frédéric came to see society as analogous to the family and he perceived his obligations to society as parallel those he owed his family: love, respect, and care for the weak. Ozanam carried this mature view of society into the Revolution of 1848, and it informed his confidence that French Catholics could participate in the work of the new republic by directing it toward a social mission that drew on charitable traditions infused with a modern sense of justice and democracy.

Booknote: “Romantic Catholics: France’s Postrevolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith.”

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Carol Harrison, is an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina.
Cornell University Press, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8014-5245-1

From the publisher: ” In this well-written and imaginatively structured book, Carol E. Harrison brings to life a cohort of nineteenth-century French men and women who argued that a reformed Catholicism could reconcile the divisions in French culture and society that were the legacy of revolution and empire. They include, most prominently, Charles de Montalembert, Pauline Craven, Amélie and Frédéric Ozanam, Léopoldine Hugo, Maurice de Guérin, and Victorine Monniot. The men and women whose stories appear in Romantic Catholics were bound together by filial love, friendship, and in some cases marriage. Harrison draws on their diaries, letters, and published works to construct a portrait of a generation linked by a determination to live their faith in a modern world.
Rejecting both the atomizing force of revolutionary liberalism and the increasing intransigence of the church hierarchy, the romantic Catholics advocated a middle way, in which a revitalized Catholic faith and liberty formed the basis for modern society. Harrison traces the history of nineteenth-century France and, in parallel, the life course of these individuals as they grow up, learn independence, and take on the responsibilities and disappointments of adulthood. Although the shared goals of the romantic Catholics were never realized in French politics and culture, Harrison’s work offers a significant corrective to the traditional understanding of the opposition between religion and the secular republican tradition in France.”

Ozanam Centennial and Bicentennial

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2013 marked the bicentennial of the birth of Frederic Ozanam.  The year that is about to end witnessed a large number of celebrations in Paris and world-wide for the anniversary.  The Vincentiana collection at the John T. Richardson Library at DePaul University in Chicago has recently acquired  a copy of the announcement for the centennial celebration held in Paris in April 1913.  The card appears below:

 

Ozanam’s Original Tomb

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The tomb of Blessed Frederic Ozanam is located in the crypt of the historic church of St. Joseph des Carmes in Paris. The church was the scene of some of the bloodiest massacres of ecclesiastics of the infamous Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Visitors now see a much different tomb setting than the original 19th century design. The changes were done sometime in the mid-twentieth century.

Book of the Week: “Hosanna!: Blessed Frederic Ozanam: Family and Friends”

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About the author: Rev. Ronald Ramson, C.M., has been speaking on the life and spirituality of Blessed Frederic Ozanam for a good number of years throughout the United States, Canada, Haiti, and during his time as a missionary in Kenya. He is the author of Praying with Frederic Ozanam which has been translated into Spanish and Portugese. Over the years, Ramson has become a devoted “friend” of Frederic and his family. Fr. Ramson is a Vincentian priest who currently ministers as a spiritual director at Holy Trinity Seminary, Irving, Texas.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: WestBowPress (July 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 14497680X
ISBN-13: 978-1449796808

Book of the Week: Rare Ozanam Work acquired by the Vincentian Studies Institute

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The Vincentian Studies Institute of DePaul University recently purchased a very rare copy of Frederic Ozanam’s 1845 tribute to his predecessor in the chair of foreign literature at the Sorbonne: Claude Charles Fauriel. Fauriel died in 1844.  The work of 36 pages was reprinted from the original article published in the Correspondant on 10 May 1845.