About Us
Mission Stats
(Updated July 1, 2026)
Current Seminarians
(Kenya and U.S.)
Families served in U.S. Vincentian parishes
Subscribers to The God Minute
Families receiving Christ’s loving message in Parish Missions
Individuals served in Kenyan and Ugandan Parishes
OUR MISSION
The Vincentians of the Western Province serve in 16 parishes in the U.S. and 6 parishes in East Africa and sponsor the largest Catholic university in the United States. They lead dozens of parish missions each year, operate a range of assistance programs for the materially poor, console patients and their families as hospital chaplains, and assist with the formation of future priests in seminaries across the country.
By your prayers, good works, and generosity, you help the Vincentians reach out to the poor, lonely, and abandoned.
In our ministry, we honor the dignity of each person we meet. By our words and the example of our lives, the Vincentians of the Western Province share the Good News of Jesus Christ with everyone who seeks His saving Grace. None of this is possible without your help.
Each of us is called to follow Christ – to give generously and serve selflessly. By your prayers, your participation in our work, and your generosity, you help the Vincentians evangelize the less fortunate.
Provincial Council
Fr. Joseph S. Williams, C.M., Provincial
Fr. James Osendorf, C.M., Consultor
Fr. Rex Hays, C.M., Consultor
Fr. Derek Swanson, C.M, Consultor
Fr. Kevin Fausz, C.M., Consultor
A Message from the Provincial
Grace and Peace in the Lord Jesus!
St. Vincent de Paul founded the Congregation of the Mission in 1625 in Paris, France. He brought to the mission a passion for serving the poor. That same passion endures today.
The Vincentians of the Congregation’s Western Province serve in more than 20 parishes in the western half of the United States and Kenya. We run programs that provide food, clothing, rent and utility assistance, and more for the less fortunate. Our confreres also conduct parish missions for thousands of parishioners each year, and the Congregation sponsors Chicago’s DePaul University, the largest Catholic university in the United States.
In the spirit and tradition of our founder, who called the poor “our masters who feed us,” we see the face of Christ in those we serve and we devote our lives to doing His work on Earth. We invite you to join us, whether it be through donations to help us do this important work or by exploring whether God may be calling you to join us as a Vincentian priest or brother.
Sincerely in St. Vincent,
Very Reverend Joseph S. Williams, C.M.
Provincial Superior
VINCENTIAN HISTORY
Our Founder
Ordained in 1600, Vincent de Paul began his priesthood working with some of the wealthiest, most prestigious families in France. For five years, he served as household tutor and spiritual director to the influential Gondi family. While he loved the experience, Vincent soon found his true calling – ministering to the poor. He devoted his life to prayer, selfless service, and sacramental ministry, and he worked to announce the Gospel to the poor.
Vincent ministered to those on the fringes of society – galley slaves, war victims, and the materially poor.
Following the unmistakable promptings of the Holy Spirit, Vincent understood the power and purity of God’s message: evangelize the poor. Together with his companions, Vincent shaped the Little Company. They ministered to those on the fringes of society – galley slaves, war victims, and the materially poor. In prayer, Vincent begged God for the humility, simplicity, and gentleness he needed to carry out this important work.
St. Vincent de Paul’s charism has lived on for four centuries. Vincentian priests and brothers follow his example of holiness and energetic labors, dedicating their lives to prayer, community
life, and evangelical service, seeking out those most in need of God’s love and mercy.
The Vincentians in America
In 1815, four Italian Vincentians traveled to the United States to staff a seminary in the Diocese of Louisiana, which encompassed the entire Louisiana Purchase territory. They made their way to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1818 before settling in The Barrens, now Perryville, Missouri. With the newly ordained and additional Vincentians arriving from Europe, the first American province was founded in 1835.
In the ensuing decades, the Vincentians formed parishes, founded colleges like Niagara University and DePaul University, and formed and taught in seminaries. The province grew to the extent that by the 1970s there were five provinces in the U.S.–West, South, Midwest, East, and New England, the most of any country in the world.
The South, Midwest, and West later consolidated into the current Western Province, while the Eastern and New England provinces comprise the remainder of the American Vincentian provinces.
The Western Province is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, about 90 minutes by car from its ancestral home in Perryville, where St. Mary’s of the Barrens remains in use as the site of the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and the Apostle of Charity Residence, a care facility for senior Vincentians. The Vincentians staff 21 parishes in Louisiana, Texas, Missouri, Illinois, California, and Alaska, and still act as mother province to the Vice-Province of Kenya, which grew from a 1981 mission by the Western Province.
St. Vincent de Paul: A Person of the 17th Century; A Person for the 21st Century
This video, produced by Niagara University, tells the fascinating story of the life and work of our founder, St. Vincent de Paul and his commitment to serving the poor.
Vincentian Identity Statement
“The purpose of the Congregation of the Mission is to follow Christ evangelizing the poor. This is achieved when, individually and collectively, the confreres:
- Make every effort to acquire a holiness appropriate to their vocation;
- Work at evangelizing the poor, especially the most abandoned;
- Help the clergy and laity in their formation and lead them to a fuller participation in the evangelization of the poor (Constitutions no.1, 1984)”
Five characteristics describe the identity of Congregation of the Mission as it looks to the future. First, we are a community called to an apostolic way of life, to sharing in that personal familiarity and encounter with Jesus Christ that allow us to be missionary disciples sent with joy into the world. Second, as members of the Church and the Congregation of the Mission, we Vincentians are people who share with all the baptized God’s call to be sent out on mission, and with the specific charism of St. Vincent de Paul, to proclaim the Reign of God to the poor, serving them and experiencing Christ in them. Third, while the whole Church is called to the work of evangelization, we Vincentians are called to evangelize by imitating in the closest possible way the missionary Christ and by preaching and building up faith communities among the poor. Fourth, we work to form the clergy and the laity to participate in the evangelization of the poor. Finally, Vincentians engage in direct service of the poor as well as the identification and eradication of the root causes of poverty.
To foster this mission, Vincentians are called to continual, lifelong formation, to sharing their experiences of God in the lives of the poor and being open to the many gifts of the Spirit needed for this mission. In particular, Vincentians are committed to the development of leadership in the evangelization of the poor, creating ministry teams of men and women who together collaborate in Vincentian works, fostering the many gifts of the Spirit and together following Christ evangelizing the poor.
At this time, in light of our identity and mission, we are prioritizing healing, fraternity, and ongoing personal, communal, and apostolic renewal to assure mission effectiveness and mission advancement.
June 16, 2022
Congregation of the Mission Western Province Statement on Complicity in Slavery
It is with profound sadness that the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) of the Western Province, USA, acknowledge the fact that from 1818-1865 we were complicit in the sin of holding persons in slavery. It is also a pronounced moral failure that it has taken us more than 150 years to acknowledge this fact, to express our contrition and to beg forgiveness. We Vincentians bought, sold, and rented women, men, and children, families and individuals. These persons were held in slavery primarily in Missouri at St. Mary’s of the Barrens in Perryville and at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Cape Girardeau, but also in Louisiana and Texas.
The men of the province recognize that we are today, all of us, beneficiaries of the voiceless sufferings, sacrifices, and labors of these women, children, and men, held in chattel slavery. The survival of the foundation of the Vincentian Motherhouse at the Barrens in Perryville, MO, depended to a large degree on the forced labor of these very people owned and rented by the Vincentians. Theirs were the hands that grew, harvested, and cooked the food for and helped build the earliest shelters for the priests, brothers, and students who lived at these Vincentian foundations in Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas.
We want to express deep contrition and sorrow at our involvement in this unconscionable evil. We want to ask the forgiveness of those who were held in slavery by the Vincentians anytime between 1818 and 1865 and indeed to all their descendants. We also express sorrow for contributing to the original sin of slavery in the United States, from contributing to the pillars of racism that exist to this day. As such, we recognize the need to intentionally address and divest ourselves of all the elements of systematic racism that continue to exist in our country, our church, and our Congregation to more effectively conform ourselves to Jesus Christ.
The priests, brothers, and deacons of the Western Province have been involved in a serious effort to face this reality and acknowledge its effects. We commit themselves to understand how the trajectory of slavery had consequences that have affected the United States and its citizens through the eras of Jim Crow and mob lynching and even continues to manifest itself in the anti-black racism endemic to this day. We condemn the sin of racism and will work so that it is eradicated from our hearts and from any structures of prejudice that remain in our community, in our church, in our country, and in the world. Where Christ is preached, there is no room for racism. As such, the Vincentians will do all in their power to provide a place at the table for every person and to ensure that the vision of the “beloved community” of Martin Luther King becomes a reality.
6/23/21
Revised 3/16/26
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