Council General launches e-book on “Vincentian Holiness”
Digital book contains profiles of SSVP members who have been sanctified in the service of the poor
On June 18, in Rome (Italy), the Council General International officially launched the digital book (e-book) entitled “Holiness in the Vincentian Conferences”, containing the biographies of 92 saints, blessed, venerable and servants of God who served in the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
The launch took place within the 3rd SSVP Lusophone Summit, held after the General Assembly of our Confederation. The event was attended by leaders of Portuguese-speaking countries (Portugal, Brazil, Sao Tome and Principe, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau).
The e-book, authored by the Brazilian researcher and chronicler Gesiel Júnior, is published in Portuguese, however, its copyright has been donated to the Council General. If any National Council is interested in this work, the publication can be translated into any language and printed by any country.
Among the characters gathered in this digital volume, there is Pope Saint John Paul II (he assisted a Conference when he was a university student in Krakow) and the Italian doctor Gianna Beretta Molla (she was a Conference secretary and was canonized for her example of maternal love).
“In this 350-page, richly illustrated digital version, we remember those who were able to follow in the footsteps of Blessed Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam and his remarkable companions, founders of the Vincentian Conferences. The most recent research was done with data from the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, an organ of the Roman Curia that manages the many processes of canonization and beatification in the Church,” explained the author.
“The detailed research done by Gesiel is praiseworthy, so much so that we hope that, with the dissemination of its contents, the biographies of the holy brothers and sisters will become better known, and that other people, stimulated by these examples, may also seek sanctity, which is our universal vocation,” said Renato Lima de Oliveira, 16th President General, who wrote the preface of the work.
The fact that it is an e-book will allow the author to make frequent updates to the digital text, since there are some causes, currently under analysis at the Vatican, whose status may change in the future.
The publication already covers two recent cases whose processes are underway. The first is that of the Brazilian student Isabel Cristina Mrad Campos, a SSVP member beatified last December. Because she was killed out of hatred for her faith, Isabel was declared a martyr and became a model for youth. The second case is that of brother Guilherme Braga da Cruz, a Portuguese jurist who was part of a Vincentian Conference in Braga. He was rector of the University of Coimbra and his cause for beatification is still in process.
This e-book corresponds to the second edition of the book “Holiness in the Vincentian Conferences”. The first version (already printed) was launched by the author in June 2019 during the annual meeting of the Council General held in Porto, Portugal.
Click here to download the eBook.
