Charles de Condren

Charles de Condren, a Doctor of the Sorbonne, born in Vaubuin near Soissons on December 15, 1588, died on January 17, 1641, is the one mystic of the French 17th century.

Life

Charles de Condren was born in a family of gentry, his father, governor of the royal castle of Piles near Meaux, had become a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. Charles makes a decisive spiritual experience at the age of eleven and half years. He follows his studies in the secondary school of Harcourt from 1603 till 1605, but because of his illness he goes back to his family for the several months. He continued his studying in the Sorbonne, he was ordered as priest in 1614, became a doctor in Sorbonne next year. He abandoned then its law of primogeniture and family inheritance, then enters street in 1617 in the Oratory founded by Pierre de Bérulle Saint-honoré in Paris, having hesitated to make Capuchin friar. In the next year he participated in the foundation of a new home of the Oratory in Nevers and in 1619 goes to Langres for the opening of a seminary, according to the dispositions of the Council of Trent which had expressed obligation. He goes back in Paris in 1620 to open a new Oratory in Poitiers and in 1624, that of Saint-Magloire which acts as seminary.^[1]

Afterwards he returned Saint-honoré in the Oratory of the street in 1625 and becomes two years later the confessor of the Gaston de France, (Mister), brother of the king Louis XIII. Condren acquires the reconciliation of the king and his brother April 18, 1630 in Troyes. Condren is also, important responsibility, confessor of very Bérulle.

In 1629, after the death of the cardinal of Berule, he became general of the Oratory, as the second superior of the Oratory.^[2] Condren was elected very quickly to avoid an intervention of the Cardinal Richelieu.

The Oratory has already 71 houses in 1631, but the P. de Condren is discouraged and he was near to resign in 1634. In 1638 he created the College of Juilly, when he rests Pierre de Bérulle in the chapel next to the cardinal.

His first biography was published in 1643 by his adherent, a member of the French Oratory, Denis Amelote (reviewed in 1657).

See also

• French school of spirituality
• Nicolas Malebranche
• List of Christian theologians

References

1. ^ Charles de Condren
2. ^ Pierre de Bérulle, William M. Thompson, Bérulle and the French School: selected writings, p. 69

Furthe reading

• P. Auvray et A. Jouffrey, Lettres du Père Charles de Condren, Paris, Cerf, 1943
• R. Deville, L'école française de spiritualité, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1987

External links

• Charles de Condren (2005) (French)
• French Congregation of the Oratory at the Catholic Encyclopedia (English)
• vénérable père CHARLES DE CONDREN théologien, docteur de Sorbonne second général de l'Oratoire (1588-1641) – LA VOIE MYSTIQUE

Persondata
Name	Charles De Condren
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 15, 1588
Place of birth	Vaubuin, France
Date of death	January 17, 1641
Place of death