Jean Rodhain

Jean Rodhain , born with Remiremont (the Vosges) the January 27th 1900, died with Lourdes in 1977 is the creator in 1946 Catholic aid.

Its complete first name is Jean Charles François. It is the elder one of a family of two children. His/her sister: Elisabeth (Marie Anne Marguerite) 1902 (Remiremont 88) - 1995 (Vauhallan 91). His/her parents: RODAIN Charles (Stephen) 1850 (Albestroff 57) - 1929 (Remiremont 88) and BOUR Anna 1862 (Strasbourg 67) - 1950 (Meudon 92).

Ordered priest in 1924; it is initially sent like “agitated vicar”, said his bishop, with Épinal, before becoming cleaned of a rural parish; en.1929, it ensures moreover the chaplaincy of the section member of the J.O.C. of Neufchâteau. In 1934, it is detached as federal chaplain of JOC to Paris. The great national meeting of the JOC to the Parc of the Princes in 1937, which brings together 80000 young workmen, highlights its gifts of organizer and organizer at the same time as its direction of the Community festival.

Reformed in 1939, chaplain of new armor-plated divisions, it is made prisoner in 1940; escaped prisoner, it is named by the French episcopate general chaplain of the prisoners of war; among the latter 6.000 priests and seminarists are whom it is necessary to help in their spiritual life and their ministry. Soon it should organize a clandestine chaplaincy of the Service of Obligatory Work (STO) in Germany, which is worth many contentions with the German authorities to him. With the release, it is named general chaplain French and deportees.

1946, with leaving the war, France is a damaged territory, deeply marked by five years of sufferings. Abandoned children, private families of housing, handicapped people, mutilated by the war, soldiers broken per too much horror…

Jean Rodhain learned with the chaplaincy prisoners of war… the force from the bonds and networks woven by the families themselves to forward to their brothers, husbands, promised in marriage of the parcels and the letters to hold… From there is born an idea as original as fantastic, that to create a structure which would be based either on families, but on the voluntary ones and to lead them to gather in team. The challenge and the stakes are enormous. The Catholic aid is born thus in 1946, approved by the episcopate.

The first campaigns, those of the patients, are launched in 1946, supported soon by the publication of Messages whose pulling reaches quickly the 40.000 specimens (currently 950.000).

Jean Rodhain known as of Catholic aid: “For the public, it is a company dealing with the catastrophes; for us, it is a company of pedagogy. We seek to wake up with situations. The Church needs to adapt. Its charitable institutions vary continuously. Charity should be invented.”

The campaigns are followed, in favor of the patients, of the prisoners, the children in difficult situation. A first City Help is open street of Comet, in Paris, during the terrible winter 1956; it will be followed City Myriam open to the Maghrebians, City Bethlehem, will be intended to the given up mothers, Red Rose tree, accommodating the provincial families of patients hospitalized in Paris. With Doors, it will be the Saint-Pierre City, accommodating the pilgrims without resources; in Jerusalem, the Abraham House, opened with all without reference to confession.

In parallel, the service of the Urgencies, to come to assistance of the victims of the catastrophes and the wars throughout the world, was created and ground; then the concern of the Tiers-Monde caused at Jean Rodhain the idea of microphone-realizations supported by Catholic aid and the organizations local sisters (Caritas), and leading the populations to take themselves their own development charges some (construction of well and stoppings, training of workmen and technicians, education of the women…).

Jean Rodhain, who is the first president of the organization Caritas lnternationalis gathering with the world plan the of the same national movements vocation than Catholic aid, takes part in the preparation of the Concile Vatican II; he insists on the taking into account of three, great needs: the deepening of a theology of charity, institution of a diaconate specialized in a charitable ministry, the creation of a world organization representative of the ministry for the poor in the Church. This last will see the day with the institution of the pontifical Council Cor unum by Paul VI, in 1971.

In recognition of the task achieved by Jean Rodhain, the same Paul VI had conferred the title to him of “chorévêque”, exceptional today in Occident; Monseigneur Rodhain will die out peacefully in the City Saint-Pierre de Lourdes, undoubtedly that of his achievements holding to him more with heart, and where it rests from now on. The Catholic aid preserves piously, in its vault of the Street of the Vat in Paris, the last writing of Monseigneur Rodhain. It is about a simple sheet on which, a few moments before its death, he recopied the prayer " I greet you Marie" . The last sentence " … per hour of our mort." ends in a line traced by the pen at the moment even of its death.

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