The mission

From the beginning, the first brothers directed clubs for apprentices and students, then groups for young workers, the `Holy Family' centres, popular works like libraries, soup kitchens, etc. They also opened local chapels linked with many works. Maurice Maignen became involved in the foundation of a `Workers' Circle' and took part in the Catholic social movement which would prepare the encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII.

The congregation of the Religious of St. Vincent de Paul grew in France and, in 1884, established itself in Canada. Following that, and responding to the call of the Popes, new works were founded in Brazil and in Africa (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Congo-Kinshasa). The Religious of St. Vincent de Paul now number close to 300. The Generalate is at 26, Via Palestro, Rome.

They still have the clubs (the `Patros') and other works for youth, like hostels for workers and students and circles for young people. Their field of action reaches out to street children, the handicapped, the aged, the homeless and the unemployed.

In France and in Canada, they have taken on parishes in areas of high population. In Brazil especially, and in Congo, in parishes in highly populated areas, they work at evangelisation and the formation of basic communities. These parishes are, naturally, connected with numerous and varied works: basic literacy, secondhand clothes shops, courses in catechesis, family associations, retreats. On the occasion of the Great Jubilee, may we receive a new grace, that of working with the Vincentian Family.