Vincent de Paul, Welfare Statist?

"In Thomas Worcester’s recent column on the Huffington Post, he spins the seventeenth-century Catholic saint, Vincent de Paul, as an advocate of twenty-first century liberal social policy. Though he doesn’t quite say it, a month ahead of a presidential election the message can hardly be missed: St. Vincent de Paul, were he around today, would surely cast his vote for Barack Obama. Worcester is probably mistaken, but the more important thing is that, in his zeal to recruit St. Vincent for the Democratic Party, he besmirches the reputation of one of history’s great exemplars of Christian charity."