St. Vincent was born in 1581 in the village of Pouy in Gascony, in the Province of Guyenne and Gascony, the Kingdom of France, to peasant farmers, father Jean and Bertrande de Moras de Paul.There was in the vicinity, a stream named the Paul and it is believed that this might have been the derivation of the family name. Vincent himself wrote the name as one word – Depaul, possibly to avoid the inference that he was of noble birth, but none of his correspondents did so. He had three brothers – Jean, Bernard and Gayon, and two sisters – Marie and Marie-Claudine. Vincent was the third child. At an early age, he showed a talent for reading and writing but during his childhood, his work was as a herder of his familys livestock. At 15, his father sent him to seminary, managing to pay for it by selling the family’s oxen. For two years, he received his education at a college in Dax, France adjoining a monastery of the Friars Minor where Vincent and others resided. In 1597, he began his studies in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Toulouse. The atmosphere at the university was anything but pious or conducive to spiritual contemplation. Fights broke out between various factions of students which escalated into armed battles. During the course of the unrest, an official was murdered by two students. Nevertheless, Vincent continued his studies and was able to help pay for his education by tutoring others. He was ordained on 23 September 1600 at the age of nineteen in Château-lÉvêque, near Périgueux. This was against the regulations established by the Council of Trent which required a minimum of 24 years of age for ordination and when Vincent was appointed parish priest in Tilh, it was appealed against in the Court of Rome Rather than respond to a lawsuit in which he would probably not have prevailed, he resigned from the position and continued his studies. On 12 October 1604 he received his Bachelor of Theology from the University of Toulouse. Later he received a Licentiate in Canon Law from the University of Paris
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 06:13:44 +0000
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