Antoine Frédéric Ozanam

Abstract

Antoine Frédéric Ozanam (1813–53) is something of a hero figure in the history of nineteenth-century French Catholicism. Best known for his role in the creation of the lay charitable association, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, his life and legacies are still commemorated by Catholics around the world today. Ozanam’s beatification in 1997 prompted a number of studies in French—the most important of which remains a major 2003 biography by historian Gérard Cholvy—and interest continues to grow, seen most recently in a 2022 biography of Ozanam’s wife, Amélie Soulacroix, by Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée. With few of these works yet translated into English, Sickinger’s 2017 biography, which appeared in paperback in 2020, forms a useful resource as Ozanam’s path to sainthood (currently awaiting confirmation of a second miracle) progresses. The book is organized thematically and Sickinger leads us in Part 1 through the different chapters of Ozanam’s life. We learn of his childhood in Lyon, marked by his devotion to the Virgin Mary, of Ozanam the student, torn between literature and law, and of Ozanam the young man, who, despite a dismissive attitude towards women (‘their intelligence is of a light and despairing inconsequence’), discovered his vocation in marriage rather than the priesthood. We also learn of Ozanam the scholar who, through his teaching, public lectures and numerous publications, attempted to defend his faith using the same scientific methods employed against it.