THE CWL LEARN ABOUT THE WORK OF THE SVP

                                                                Blessed Frederic Ozanam

At the March meeting of the CWL, SVP President Tom Turnbull described how the Society was founded in post-Revolution Paris in April 1833 by a group of idealistic Catholic students, led by Frederic Ozanam, the privileged and gifted son of a Milanese doctor and a silk heiress. The young students wanted to put their faith into action by providing direct assistance to the poor, and were supported by the Daughters of Charity; the distinctively cornetted "butterfly" nuns founded by St Vincent De Paul.

 In 1844, the first SVP conference was formed in England and Wales. In 1860, Cardinal Wiseman, the first Archbishop of Westminster, commissioned the SVP to publish a Catholic newspaper. The Universe has been in publication ever since and remains the best selling Catholic newspaper in the UK and Ireland. 

Tom described how the Lymington Conference, founded six years ago, regularly visits and helps housebound, lonely and hospitalised people.

                                                                                Report by Gigi