A - A secret Catholic society for the formation of young lay students and clerics. The true name of this society is not known; it is known by the mysterious abbreviation Aa, which seems to mean "Assemblée des Associés." Its origins go back to 1632 in the College of the Jesuit fathers at La Flèche (France), where it appears as a secret congregation within the College's public Marian Congregation, which proposed to create a group of associates who would intensely promote the aims of the Congregation — a practice already in use, but under other names (ristretto, colloquium marianum, sodalitas SS. omnium, etc.), in various Jesuit Marian congregations of Italy, France and Germany since the end of the 16th century. From La Flèche the practice of associating in secret passed to the College of Clermont (Paris) in 1643; here the A. organized itself definitively, and its members, bound by the most absolute secrecy concerning everything that constituted the essence of the society, were called the Bons Amis by sympathizers and Bagotiens (disciples of the famous Father Bagot) by the malicious.
The Breton Vincent de Meur, future first superior of the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris, founded in 1658 the A. of Toulouse, which later became, and remained until the last century, the ideal center of all the A. In 1676 the A., according to a plan already envisioned by de Meur, split into two sections: one destined for students preparing for the priesthood, living outside the seminaries (the A. des clercs), the other for students not called to the ecclesiastical state (the A. des laïcs). Even thus divided, the A. preserved unchanged its original ideal, which was to lead its members to a high degree of perfection, by means of methodical practices of piety and the exercise of the virtues, especially charity (cf. the interesting statute). The A. was also a seedbed of missionary vocations; this ideal was kept alive in a particular way by the A. of Toulouse.
The A. spread to more than thirty cities of France, Canada, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, making its salutary influence felt everywhere, especially among students preparing for the priesthood but completing their studies outside the seminaries. In Italy the A. had a very active center in
Turin, founded in 1781 by a certain cleric Murge-ray, in contact with the A. of Bordeaux. To it belonged the servant of God Pius Brunone Lanteri (v.), who was an ardent supporter of it for over twenty years.
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