Polski
wersja stronyThe Society is named after Saint Vincent de Paul who was born in
South-West France in 1581. He was Canonised in 1737 by Pope Clement XII
and made Patron of the Society in 1855 .
In 1833 the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul came into being , founded by 20 year old Fredric Ozanam a student at the Sorbonne University in Paris with half a dozen other young students , all from comfortable backgrounds , their task , to help people suffering from the most grinding poverty in post revolutionary France . Each was given responsibility for a very poor family which had to be visited every week to try to help them with their problems , to give service and friendship , their time and their talents . Before he died at the age of 40 , the Society had spread to Western Europe , Greece Turkey , U.SA Mexico and Canada . Blessed Fredric Ozanam was Beatified by His Holiness Pope John Paul II in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in 1995
The Saint Vincent de Paul Society now has a presence in 132 countries throughout the world .There are approximately 47,000 conferences. (groups of members) 322 of these groups are in Scotland .There are in excess of 600,000 members world wide .
The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is therefore a worldwide charitable organisation , the largest Lay Catholic Charitable organisation in existence .
The Scottish Society sponsors conferences in various parts of the world, for instance there are over 5000 conferences in India with 45000 members , also in India there are 11 homes for old people , 4 hospitals , 3 dairy farms and 3 training centres . The Bathgate conference sponsors two conferences in Kerala State in South India , we also sponsor technical apprenticeships in the same area , we pay for their training over a 3 year period .
In the East End of Glasgow there is the Louse Women’s Project which opened in May 2001 solely for women involved in prostitution and drugs abuse. It is named after Louise de Marillac a 17 Century French Saint and a contemporary of Saint Vincent de Paul .
The first meeting of any conference of the SSVP in Scotland was in Hunters Square in the Parish of St. Patrick’s in the Cowgate in Edinburgh in the year 1851.
The Bathgate conference was first formed a little before the First World War around about 1912. One of it’s earliest and youngest members was a teenager called Joseph Logan .He was to become a lifelong member of the Society and served as President of the Conference for a number of years , In 1964 he was awarded the British Empire Medal by Her Majesty The Queen for services to the Community of Bathgate .His son Vincent is now the Bishop of the Diocese of Dunkeld with his Cathedral in Dundee .
The Society has the right to collect money inside the church , the present conference meets weekly, has seven members , five men and two women and is involved in every facet of parish life, Mgr Alistair Lawson our Parish Priest is the Chaplain to the Conference. In 2002 the Bathgate Newlands Committee awarded the John Hunter Memorial Medal to the conference for services to the community of Bathgate .
Joe Milligan Society of St Vincent de Paul