Peter-Victor Braun

The Servant of God, Abbé Pierre-Victor Braun, (5 June 1825 – 18 May 1882) was a French Catholic priest who ministered to the poor of Paris. His work laid the foundations for the establishment of several different congregations of Religious Sisters who now serve worldwide. The cause for his canonization was opened in France in 1991, and was accepted for investigation by the Holy See in 2007.

Victor Braun (as he called himself) was a native of Saint-Avold in the Lorraine region of France. A few years after his ordination for the Diocese of Metz, he moved to Paris to meet the spiritual needs of the German-speaking people of his region who were flocking from the farms to the capital at the height of the Industrial Revolution in France to find work. He became a regular confessor at the famed Basilica of Our Lady of Victories in Paris.

In the course of his ministry, Braun also served in a seedy quarter of the city where he became aware of the struggle of the young women there who had come as unskilled workers, especially when they were not able to find work in the factories. He also saw single mothers struggling to survive with their children. With the help of a small group of volunteers he opened a hostel where the young women could find a refuge and place of support. He also opened a day care center so that mothers could find employment by which they could support their families. Additionally home visits were done by his volunteer ladies to the residences of the sick poor to care for them in their need.

By October 1866, Braun had reluctantly concluded that the work had to be entrusted to an congregation of professed Religious Sisters in order to guarantee its continuity. Thus he established three of these volunteers under the leadership of a Bavarian woman, Anna Katherina Berger, as a religious congregation, the Sisters Servants of the Sacred Heart. Berger had come to Paris already a member of a community of Franciscan Sisters in Pirmasens, founded by the Blessed Paul Joseph Nardini. She was appointed as of the small community by Braun, under the name of Mother Mary Odilia.

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