Who is Saint Vincent De Paul

by Doctor Trivia Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:43 am

St. Vincent de Paul was born of a peasant family at Pouy, Gascony, France, in 1580, and worked as a shepherd boy on his father’s farm. At a young age Vincent had a great desire to become a priest; and after completing his studies for the priesthood, he was ordained in 1600 and remained in the vicinity of Toulouse, acting as a tutor while continuing his own studies.

Having traveled to Marseilles for an inheritance and sailing home to Toulouse, Vincent was captured by Turkish pirates in the year 1605 and was taken to Tunis. He was maltreated and eventually sold as a slave; but he escaped two years later with his master, a renegade whom he eventually converted to Catholicism. Upon his escape from the Turkish pirates, Vincent immediately dedicated his life to the practice of spiritual and corporal works of charity. He set up many poor houses for the crippled and sick and personally cared for the patients who had the most contagious diseases. He would dress their wounds and nurse them back to health; indeed there wasn’t a poor man that didn’t know of Vincent’s kindness.

On the 27th of September in the year 1660, Vincent died at the age of eighty, having faithfully served God throughout his whole life. On August 13, 1729, Vincent was declared a Blessed by Benedict XIII; and on June 16, 1737, he was canonized by Clement XII. St. Vincent’s bones and heart are perfectly incorrupt and have been placed inside a wax figure of his body. His relics can be seen in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris.