OLIVAINT, PIERRE. - Jesuit, victim of the Commune (v.), b. in Paris on 22 Feb. 1816, d. there on 26 May 1871. Son of a Napoleonic officer, he completed his literary studies (1828) with brilliant success; he was appointed professor at the Lycée of Grenoble (1839) and the following year at the Collège Bourbon in Paris, then accepted the post of tutor to the youngest son of the duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1841).
Converted to the faith in 1837, he was part of the first conferences of St. Vincent together with the founder Frédéric Ozanam (v.); then on 3 May 1845 he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest on 21 Sept. 1850. From 1852 to 1855 he was attached to the Collège de Vaugirard in Paris as professor, director and preacher to the students, and then as prefect of studies; finally he was appointed its rector, bringing it to a high standard and great prosperity. In 1865 he became superior of the residence in Rue de Sèvres, becoming a tireless director of spiritual exercises, confessor and preacher.
On 5 Apr. 1871 he was arrested by the Communards together with other ecclesiastics and religious. In the prison of La Roquette he also found the archbishop of Paris, Msgr. Darboy, whom he comforted in his final moments, and finally he fell in the massacre carried out by the Communards at 85 Rue Haxo.
Among his published writings, his Consigli ai giovani (Advice to Young People) remained famous, a work translated into the principal languages. His remains rest in Paris in the Jesuit church in Rue de Sèvres.
Bibliography3 works
Arnaldo M. Lanz
OLIVAINT CONFERENCE
An association founded in Paris in honor of Fr. O.; it brings together young university students from the Faculties of law, letters and political sciences, with spiritual and professional aims. Since 1948, while remaining faithful to its traditional fundamental line, it has specified itself as a private center of political education, beyond every party.
Its recruitment is strict and demands a kind of vocation, that is, suitability for a disinterested and competent political action. The Conference O. seeks to ensure this competence, by means of a solid general culture, especially of philosophy, politics and modern history, with numerous oratorical exercises, with collaboration on newspapers and reviews, conferences, libraries, relations with French and foreign personalities. Every year, in summer, the Conference O. repairs to a castle on the island of Port-Cros in the Mediterranean, where it receives the representatives of similar foreign groups. Young people of every nation, religious confession, faculty may belong to it. It insists on rectitude, on morality, on the study of the Catholic religion. Every month a spiritual retreat offers everyone the possibility of rethinking the problems of the faith.
Pius XII, receiving a deputation of the Conference O. (Easter 1948), encouraged it to stand above party struggles and contingent quarrels «in order to remain firmly united on the essential points of justice, charity and Christian wisdom» (L'Osservatore Romano, 28 March 1948).
Arnaldo M. Lanz