PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With a $1.2-million renovation almost complete, the Diocese of Providence will reopen its Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul this weekend, and one of its first public Masses will be at 1 p.m. Sunday honoring the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Best known for its work with the poor, the society was founded in 1833 by Frederic Ozanam, a 20-year-old college student who came up with the idea after being challenged during a debate as to what he and his fellow Catholics at the Sorbonne were personally doing to help the poor.
With donations and money out of their own pockets, he and six friends began a "conference of charity" to provide direct help to poor people in Paris, with St. Vincent de Paul as their patron saint. The organization has since become an international society, including 35 conferences or chapters in Rhode Island. Ozanam was declared "blessed" by Pope John Paul II in 1997.
The Mass on Sunday will be celebrated by the diocese's auxiliary bishop, the Most Rev. Robert C. Evans.
By Richard C. Dujardin