Saint Vincent de Paul

Life story

Vincent was born in 1581 into a peasant family at Pouy, in Gascony in south-western France. His parents saw to his schooling, and he was ordained a priest in 1600. In 1605, as he later told it, he was captured by North African pirates and sold as a slave in Tunis; he escaped in 1607 and returned to France.

He moved to Paris and served as chaplain and tutor in the household of the Gondi family. In 1617, at Châtillon-les-Dombes, he gathered a group of women to visit poor, sick families, the beginning of the Confraternities of Charity. From there he organised help for abandoned children, the sick, galley convicts and regions devastated by war. His work in the Gondi family also took him to their estates in the countryside, where he saw how little religious instruction poor villagers had received.

In 1625 he founded the Congregation of the Mission, commonly called the Vincentians, to preach in the countryside and train priests. In 1633, with Louise de Marillac, he founded the Daughters of Charity, women who lived among ordinary people to serve the poor. He also took part in the training of the clergy and organised relief during the Thirty Years' War. He raised funds from wealthy supporters and organised ladies of Paris into charitable associations, and he founded seminaries to improve the formation of the clergy.

He died in Paris on 27 September 1660, was beatified in 1729 and canonised in 1737. In 1885 Leo XIII named him patron of all charitable societies. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, founded in Paris in 1833, bears his name.

Works and witness

• Was enslaved in Tunis in 1605 and escaped in 1607.
• Founded the first Confraternity of Charity at Châtillon-les-Dombes in 1617.
• Founded the Congregation of the Mission in 1625.
• Founded the Daughters of Charity with Louise de Marillac in 1633.

Patron of

Charitable societies

Saints from the same country

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Louis IX of France, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Francis de Sales

References

• Correspondance, entretiens, documents (Coste edition)
• Martyrologium Romanum
• Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – biographical profile

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.