CONDREN, CHARLES de. - Second superior general of the French Oratory, one of the most distinguished spiritual directors of his era, b. at Vaubuin (Soissons) on 15 Dec. 1588, d. in Paris on 7 Jan. 1641. A priest in 1614, he obtained the degree of doctor at the Sorbonne the following year and preached at St-Nicolas du Chardonnet, at St-Honoré and at St-Médard. After hesitating somewhat about his vocation, he entered the Oratory at the age of 29. Shortly thereafter Card. de Bérulle entrusted him with important missions at Langres and at Poitiers, and proposed him to the queen as confessor to the brother of Louis XIII, Gaston of Orléans.

In 1624, elected superior at St-Magloire, he stood out among the most eminent Parisian mystics of that time. Five years later he succeeded de Bérulle as second superior general of the Oratory. Cofounder of the « Compagnie du St. Sacrement », he tirelessly promoted the Catholic restoration in France.
His body, found again in 1884, is preserved in the college of Juilly.

All his works are posthumous: Lettres et Discours (1642, 1647, 1655, 1658, 1668) and above all the short work L'idée du sacerdoce et du sacrifice de Jésus Christ, often reprinted, not entirely his, but perfectly consonant with the principles of his direction. The doctrine of C. is identical to that of de Bérulle save for a few nuances; both are summed up in « theocentrism » as opposed to « anthropocentrism ». While de Bérulle teaches our union with God as deriving from the appropriation of the God-Man of our interior states, C. exalts adherence to the annihilation of the God-Man, who annihilates us and consumes us in the sacrifice of the Incarnation and of Calvary.

C. had a broad influence on his contemporaries. Fr. Amelote, his biographer, writes: « cet homme était trop du ciel pour être découvert en la terre ». St. Vincent de Paul often repeated that a man like him had never been seen, and M. Olier regarded him as « la plus grande lumière de notre siècle et peut-être de beaucoup d'autres ».

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: P. Amelote. La vie du p. Ch. de C. composée par un prêtre. Paris 1643; Lettres de M. Olier, ed. M. Gamon, I, ibid. 1885, p. 333; H. Bremond. Hist. littér. du sentiment religieux en France, III, ibid. 1923, pp. 284-348; P. Pourrat. La Spiritualité chrétienne, III, ibid. 1931, pp. 231 ff. 551 ff.; A. Portaluppi. Dottrine spirituali, 2nd ed., Brescia 1943, p. 246 ff.

Romualdo Souarn

@incollection{ec4_condren_charles_de, author = {Souarn, Romualdo}, title = {Condren, charles de}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {216--217}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/condren-charles-de} }

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Condren, Charles de

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