Saint-Joseph’s Oratory was almost half a century old when it was decided to enlarge and deepen the historical and doctrinal knowledge of the Patron Saint of the Sanctuary. In June 1949, a ‘Documentation Center’ was founded to work on gathering everything that could have been written on Saint Joseph since the beginning of Church history. Under the direction of Roland Gauthier, c.s.c., who was coming back from Rome after being there to write his Ph.D. thesis on the Fatherhood of Saint Joseph, the Center was officially opened in 1951. Every library of the world was put under contribution to find pieces of work on the subject.

 

The following year, in the intent to raise up scientific studies as well as popularizations from gathered documents, during a first ‘Study Day’ on March 19^th 1952, the participating theologians and historians decided to add to the ‘Documentation Center’ a ‘Research Center’. In 1953, a Scientific Journal was initiated to publicize the work done in what became the ‘Center of Research and Documentation’. From 1953 to 1994 the Cahiers de Joséphologie published 86 issues.

 

Continuing without respite its mission to make Saint Joseph and the Holy Family ‘better known’ and ‘more loved’, the Center managed to create a specialized library, the ‘Roland-Gauthier Library’, containing more than 20 000 documents in about forty languages, along with a stamp collection, magazines and many other artifacts.

 

Through the years, the Center was at the origin or collaborated to a lot of initiatives in the honour of Saint Joseph Patron of the Universal Church, such as: 1- nine international Symposiums whose the first was held in Rome in 1971 and the most recent one in 2005 in Germany, with publication of the Acts of those congresses; 2- the addition of the name of Saint Joseph to the Canon of the Mass by pope John XXIII; etc. The Center also initiated or encouraged University work ranging from pure theology to art history, on Saint Joseph.

 

In 1994, after the retirement of the founder, the Center has seen its mission renewed. Its base of research has been enlarged to integrate Brother André and the Oratory, and also the questions of spirituality related to the vocation and the life of a sanctuary: prayer, conversion, pilgrimage, suffering, healing, miracle, experience of the saints, popular devotion, etc. It became an extension of the pastoral vocation of Saint Joseph’s Oratory regarding the reflection and the research. For further details about the history of the Center one can read D. Robillard, « Les grands travaux et les œuvres » in Les merveilles de l’Oratoire, 1904-2004 (Fides, 2005, ch. XI, p. 325-330).

 

The Center does not lend documents of the Roland-Gauthier Library. They are available for consultation on appointment. As long as copies are not sold out, the publications done by the Center can still be bought (see the catalog).