Frederick Ozanam: Lay Evangelizer

Frederic Ozanam’s life and career are recounted in detail, including his crises of “faith, career, and state in life.” He worked for poor persons through concrete action and the world of ideas, wanting to transform society with both. Throughout his life, Ozanam defended Christianity as the source of all good and of civilization’s advancement. He believed that help for the poor would come from the Church rather than from social reforms, but because of anticlericalism, it was up to lay people to reintroduce charity to society. He was not opposed to social reforms, but he thought they should be based on the experience that came from service to poor persons. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was founded on Vincent’s idea that the poor are the masters and the Society’s spirit was based on Vincent’s. Ozanam also believed that Christians were to reconcile the rich and the poor and establish equality between them. His relevance to our time is discussed at length in the article’s conclusion