On Friday and Saturday, 7-8 November, Father General went to Istanbul to participate in a series of commemorative events. Friday evening, he participated in a dinner offered by the Lycée Saint Benoît on the occasion of the 225th anniversary of its foundation and gave the intervention below. The following day he concelebrated the Eucharist, presided by the Bishop of Istanbul, at the La Paix Hospital on the 150th anniversary of its foundation. Following lunch, the hospital patients sang and the employees of the hospital performed typical Turkish dances.
The Lycée Saint Benoît is an institution founded by the Vincentians and still carrying out its original mission of education of young people. La Paix Hospital, owned and operated by the Daughters of Charity of the Swiss Province, houses the elderly and mentally ill people.
Intervention of Father General on the occasion of the 225th anniversary
of Lycée Saint Benoît in Istanbul
I am happy to be with you to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Lycée Saint Benoît. It is for me a great joy to participate in this event. I recall, as Superior General of the Vincentians, how my confreres arrived here in 1783, in a context very different from today’s. They had the vibrant desire of serving the population of Istanbul particularly the young people. They also desired to continue the work of education of their predecessors, the Jesuit Fathers, who arrived at Saint Benoit November 18, 1583 as the result of the good relationship between the King of France, Francis I, and Sultan Suleiman the Great.
It is possible to evoke the faces of the Vincentians who committed themselves with passion and a spirit of service to this task. Let me mention, Monsieur Eugène Borè, who was a very knowledgeable person of this region and who, in the milieu of the 19th Century, when offered prestigious positions decided instead to become a Vincentian. “Monsieur Borè has a real and profound regard for the Turks whose spirit, in his own words, is made of rectitude and loyalty accompanied by a certain fire and courage.” (Yves Danjou, Histoire du Lycée Saint Benoît, p. 59-60). He was my predecessor as Superior General 1874-1878.
The Vincentian Fathers follow the same direction of their founder, Saint Vincent de Paul, who was in the 17th Century in Paris the defender of the poor and marginalized. For Monsieur Vincent, one of the best means to confront and solve the social problems of his time was to learn how to read and write and to teach the principles of justice and charity, in order to allow the less fortunate to take care of themselves and to rise above their misery. In this spirit, he founded the Vincentians, and later with the aid of Saint Louise de Marillac, the Daughters of Charity. The latter would say with reason: “Education is a right and a recompense for every person.”
It is in this spirit that the Lycée Saint Benoît continues with ardor its work of education. Its purpose is to give young people of this country quality teaching, opening them to the intellectual and cultural values of Turkey and of France, impressing upon them moral values in order to make them responsible citizens and to open them, respecting the consciences of each, to a humanism, a source of growth for all of mankind.
Let me take advantage of this occasion to give my thanks to all the education team of Lycée Saint Benoît, especially to its Director, M. Luc Vogin, for their devotion and the magnificent job they are realizing. They are careful to prolong with dynamism and creativity the pedagogical work that has been performed in this Lycée for 225 years. The many alumni present here are the privileged witnesses of this.
In our time when economic, political and religious tensions are not lacking, it is good to believe that union of hearts is brought about by the rapprochement of spirits. In our contemporary world, where the media keeps putting us side by side, it is possible, and we believe it, to live in a climate of respect and friendship, source of peace. In this sense we feel close to the thought of Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey, whose death we will commemorate next Monday, who said: “Peace in the country, peace in the world.”
Thank you very much.
