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The saints

St Vincent de Paul

Captured by pirates and sold as a slave, he gave the rest of his life to the poor.

Feast: 27 September · 1580 to 1660 · Gascony and Paris, France

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The Chapel of St Vincent de Paul in Paris: a pale neoclassical façade with columns and a pediment on a city street.

Guilhem Vellut from Paris, France, 2017. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Home / The saints / St Vincent de Paul

The Mediterranean, 1605

A young French priest is sailing home from Marseilles.1

Turkish pirates capture the ship and carry him to Tunis, where he is sold as a slave.1

He escaped two years later, with his master, a renegade whom he brought back to the faith.

01St Vincent de Paul

Charity, organized

As a country parish priest he founded the first conference of charity for the assistance of the poor.1

He turned to the convicts in the galleys, chained in damp dungeons on black bread and water.1

He established the Daughters of Charity to serve the poor.1

02St Vincent de Paul

Paris

He died at Paris on 27 September 1660.1

The Chapel of St Vincent de Paul in Paris: a pale neoclassical façade with columns and a pediment on a city street.
The Chapel of St Vincent de Paul in Paris, where his relics rest. Guilhem Vellut from Paris, France, 2017. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

He did not just feel sorry for the poor. He built a system that still feeds them.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Vincent de Paul”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.