The Most Important Question

Craig Mousin examines what Vincentian universities can do for persons who are poor beyond providing them with education, since education alone is not enough to ameliorate poverty. Such institutions must answer the question of what must be done to reduce poverty with concrete action. Universities are the best place to research and debate solutions. Moreover, they can create communities of faculty, staff, and students who are aware of the poor’s dignity, who are motivated to serve them, and who will use their talents to bring about broader social reform. Service is done in partnership with poor persons themselves and with those organizations in the community at large who are already working with them. Mousin places particular emphasis on the approaches of Frederic Ozanam and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul to poverty because those grew out of a university setting

Frédéric Ozanam―Beneficent Deserter: Mediating the Chasm of Income Inequality through Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

Frederic Ozanam demonstrated how liberty, equality, and fraternity were Christian principles whose application was to safeguard the rights of poor persons and lessen the tremendous gap between rich and poor. He feared violent class warfare and insisted that Christians act as nonviolent mediators for as long as they could to prevent it from happening or at least ensure less disastrous results. If forced to take sides, Christians were to choose the poor, as the Gospel does. He urged charitable, pastoral, and civic engagement with the working poor, an often overlooked group. He campaigned for the Church and France to embrace democracy and to balance state intervention with the rights of poor persons. He supported the right to work, the right to organize and the right to a natural salary (a salary that would meet the needs of families and that would allow for health care and retirement). The idea of a natural salary has come down to us today as the living wage. Later in this article, income inequality in the modern United States is discussed and how Ozanam’s approach, which is grounded in collaboration and biblical justice, can be used to rectify it

What Would Vincent do Today to Overcome Poverty?

This short article introduces the Vincentian Poverty Reduction Symposium of 2007 and further introduces this issue of Vincentian Heritage, which has a special focus on what Vincentian academic institutions from all over the world can do to reduce povert