The
Society of St. Vincent de Paul is committed to
"helping our neighbors in need," without regard to
religion, race, or ethnic background.
Description & Mission of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul
Internal Faith - External Charity
Inspired by Gospel values, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a
Catholic lay organization, leads women and men to join together to
grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to the needy
and suffering in the tradition of its founder, Frederic Ozanam, and
its patron, St. Vincent de Paul.
As a reflection of the whole family of God, members are drawn from
every ethnic and cultural background, age group, and economic level.
They are united in an international society of charity by their
spirit of poverty, humility, and sharing, which is nourished by
prayer and reflection, mutually supportive gatherings, and adherence
to a basic Rule.
Organized locally into small working groups known as Conferences,
members witness God's love by embracing all works of charity and
justice. The Society collaborates with other people of good will in
relieving need and addressing its causes, making no distinction
among those served, because, in them, members see the face of Christ
Person-to-Person Assistance
The Society's specific ministry is to relieve suffering and to
provide moral support and Christian friendship on a person-to-person
basis. Whenever possible, this assistance is essentially local,
adapted according to the particular needs, places, and
circumstances.
Traditionally, the home visit has been a major element in Vincentian
service. Assistance is not
limited to material need, but includes all activities to bolster and
advance the human spirit, such as visitation to the lonely, moral
encouragement, support for the down-trodden, and so forth. The
Vincentian members discover through home visitation the multiple
needs of the poor. To address these needs, the Society has developed
numerous special works. These include such ministries as the food
pantry clothing room, homeless shelter, thrift store and sheltered
workshops.
Universal Lay Organization
The members of the first Conference (the name given to the Society's
basic unit of organization), nearly all of them college students,
dedicated their spare time to helping needy families living in the
neighborhood, not only with gifts, but also and chiefly by fraternal
contacts.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 1995 comprises 46,400
Conferences made up of 875,000 members, men and women, young people
and adults, "brothers and sisters," in 130 countries: 39 in Africa,
33 in the Americas, 22 in Asia, 27 in Europe, and 9 in Oceania.
Sharing Resources To Help
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is present in city, suburb, and
rural area. Members may themselves be of low means. All are tied
together primarily by the spirit and Rule of the Society and
secondarily by the structure of Councils and Conferences.
The Society is enriched by the contribution of each individual, each
culture, and each tradition. Financial resources are shared readily
and generously throughout the Vincentian family, some members giving
from their surplus and others from their need.
Working Together In Time Of Tragedy
When a major catastrophe occurs anywhere in the world - a flood,
earthquake, civil or foreign war - the emergency program of the
Society is activated. Funds are sent directly to the National
Council or to the Conferences of the stricken country for immediate
relief
Cooperating With Other Organizations
The Society realizes that it does not have expertise in all areas of
need. Its members collaborate with organizations, agencies, and
people of good will in alleviating need. In all such collaborative
relationships, the Society maintains its autonomy and a focus on the
involvement of its members in person-to-person ministry.
Voice For The Poor
Nationally, as well as internationally, the Society is a voice of
the poor. It avoids involving itself in party politics, but it tries
not only to alleviate poverty but also to discover and remedy
situations that cause poverty. It does not and will not hesitate to
take unpopular stands in order to obtain justice and combat the
alienation of the poor.
Although assistance is often material and emergency in nature, the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul supports and encourages recipients to
become personally empowered to be free from the need for on-going
help.
While the Society's strength is based on its personal contact with
people in need, the Society does not ignore that there are many
systemic causes that affect the poor. On such issues of social
justice, the Society joins its voice with the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference. While
avoiding partisan politics, the Society does not hesitate to share
with legislative bodies the combined and extensive experiences of
its members in visiting the poor in their homes.
Action-Oriented Lay Organization
The Society of St Vincent de Paul is an activity of lay persons - of
men and women who are trying, in accord with their beliefs as
followers of Jesus Christ, to become fully human through caring and
sharing. Responding to local needs and conditions, members seek,
together with those of greater means, to apply the most effective
solutions to the needs of the poor and suffering, not by words, but
by personal action.
Show Me Your Works
It was this idea of
bearing witness that according to the Society's Youth" founder,
Frederic Ozanam, was decisive. For several years the young man from
Lyons had dreamed of a small group of friends working together in
defense of the Catholic religion. He thought for a while that he was
realizing his dream when, after his arrival in Paris, he enrolled in
the Conference of History, in which questions of the highest moment
were freely debated. He soon found himself leading a group of young
Christians who took an active part in the discussions. Now, one
evening an adversary replied to them:
"Without doubt, Christianity in the past performed marvelous things
but what are you doing today? Where are the works which show your
Faith?"
Ouryoung friends were given furiously to think. It was not
enough to stand up in defense of their religion. It was necessary to
show the fruits of the Faith they held. It was necessary to take
positive action, to bend over the bed of the sufferer; not only to
adore the God of the Gospels but to follow Him. The Conference of
Charity was to be the result of these reflections.
Mutual Assistance
Along with the idea of bearing witness, our founder wished by
uniting his friends in the Conference of Charity to promote their
sanctification. From the time of his arrival in Paris, he sought a
means of helping, by an organized Christian friendship, those "poor
birds of passage," the students who are thrown far from the
protecting warmth of the family hearth into the indifferent
environment sometimes hostile, always dangerous, of a great city.
The Conference of Charity would be for them an intimate and cordial
circle radiating youth and health, where they would find shelter for
their purity and their faith, and at the same time an opportunity to
exercise by mutual assistance a charity within their means, modest,
intelligent and
practical. Its success was such that soon the little seed germinated
and sent forth an ever-growing abundance of shoots. Charity between
the members kept its position of importance; but the program had to
be enlarged. A simple and precise expression of this is to be found
in the Articles of the Rule. Prayers said together and mutual
example are the means offered for advancing in the love of Jesus
Christ and of His suffering members.
This love is essentially a giving of oneself. The Society, in taking
for its aim the sanctification of its members, does not urge a
self-centered pursuit incompatible with the very idea of charity. A
world peopled with saints would certainly not be a selfish world.
Ozanam, so prompt to be moved at the sight of human wretchedness and
so filled with zeal in over- coming it, was also too well informed a
Christian to be held back even for an instant by the risk of such a
distortion of the true idea of charity. He believed in the Communion
of Saints and knew that, in the order of Grace, the merits of each
assist the good of all. The soul that raises itself raises the moral
and spiritual level of mankind. To help Christians to practice
charity towards one another; to cause to be born in them, by an
understanding of evil, the will to relieve it; and in doing so reap
the benefits of union and experience - such was one of the principal
aims of our founders. It is inscribed in our tradition.
Visiting The Poor in Their Homes
The third aim that Ozanam and his friends
propose for themselves was a corollary of these two others. Witness
is of value only if it is manifested in action, and action is not
less necessary if the aim of mutual support is to be realized. That
is why the members of the Conference of Charity, at their very first
meeting, were led to make the decision to practice visitation of the
poor. This work has remained the principal one in the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul and all those which have since been added have the
same characteristic of direct and personal assistance.
It is this activity
that has made it easy to attract new members, that gave the Society
its first impetus and that has made possible its continuous
development. The program of visitation can, in fact, be set in
motion quietly and without complicated organization. It demands no
great expenditure either of time or money; it is adaptable to the
most diverse situations.
The personal contact which visiting necessitates has the advantage
of giving members an actual knowledge of want, of widening their
outlook, and of causing them to undergo an apprenticeship in social
service. Furthermore, it brings about immediate relief of suffering
which the best legislative organization can neither prevent nor
suppress. Finally, it creates between visitor and visited an
atmosphere of friendliness, supernatural in its principle, humane in
its manifestations, salutary in every way for both. Ozanam saw in it
an opportunity and a duty for the members to play a role of
appeasement in social conflicts. We can, at least, be certain that
friendly contact softens the bitterness felt by those who need to
accept help.
Our Society cannot claim to abolish want. Neither its means, its
structure, nor their budgets are equal to such an ambition. If it
were to direct all its efforts to building up funds and the
establishment of a powerful organization of distribution, it would
lose the features that assure its efficacy in the spiritual field, a
primary consideration with it. But that does not mean that it should
resign itself to giving only a trifling assistance, inadequate to
the needs and demands of modern times.
(Taken from chapter one of
the United States Manual of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul 1995
ed.)
video from "Serving in Hope" Module 1
copyrighted by:
Society of St.
Vincent de Paul Council of the United States
