Emmanuel d'Alzon (1810-1880)

The nineteenth century in which he lived was a time of great upheaval in France. The old society was giving way to a new one, and the birth was painful... Violent outbreaks erupted regularly in the highly charged political atmosphere. The stakes were high and the victory of the modern secular state conclusive: liberal constitutions, universal male suffrage, abolition of slavery, laws governing the press and education, early attempts in social and labor union legislation.

Yet Emmanuel d'Alzon found something missing in the midst of the modern liberal democratic regime which had proclaimed the Rights of Man - that is, the Rights of God.

In the wake of the French Revolution, which defiantly declared the "Rights of Man", Father d'Alzon was an apostle of the "Rights of God" - the right of God not to be excluded from human society.