August 14: remembrance of the Vincentian woman.

A few years ago, this date was instituted to commemorate the birth of Amélie Soulacroix, Ozanam’s wife, who was born in Marseille on August 14, 1820, and died on September 26, 1894, at the age of 74.

It remains on the calendar as a commemoration, since Amélie never belonged to the Conferences, although thanks to her we know Ozanam, our principal founder, much better.

First Women’s Conferences

At the beginning, women were practically absent from the University and therefore did not take part in the creation of the SSVP. Since the General Rule of 1835, membership had been reserved to men.

This measure did not succeed in preventing the development of women’s Conferences outside France. Thus, in Madrid in 1855 and in Bologna in 1856—then belonging to the Papal States—two ladies’ Conferences were founded, by Encarnación Villalba de Hore and by Celestina Scarabelli, respectively.

It would not be until 1931 that the Council of Bologna reached an agreement with its male counterpart in Paris and was recognized as part of the Vincentian work.

Although the initiative of the Madrid ladies in 1855 initially challenged the General Rule, their work was taken as complementary.

Thus, in the 1858 Rule, regarding the ladies’ Conferences which, following the men’s rule, devote themselves to visiting women, it stated: “doing precisely what is forbidden to us, and thus in a certain way completing our work (…). We must with all our hearts give many thanks to God Our Lord for so great a good.”

Following a request by the president of the Spanish Conference to the nuncio in Madrid, Pius IX granted them in 1856 the same indulgences as the male branch and, in 1867, extended them to all the Conferences active in Spain.

The SSVP is made up of Vincentian women and men, together in faith under the same charism, with the same rights and duties.