BATTISTINI. - Name of a missionary society of secular priests (Congregatio sacerdotum saecularium missionariorum de Sancto Ioanne Baptista), now dissolved, approved by a brief of Benedict XIV dated 23 Sept. 1755, founded in Genoa in the eighteenth century by the priest Domenico Francesco Olivieri at the suggestion and urging of the ven. Maria Antonietta Solimani. The Society, placed under the authority of the S. Congregation of Propaganda, had missions especially in Bulgaria and China. It was governed by a superior and a vicar, who assumed office on the feast day of s. Giovanni Battista and remained in office for three years. They lived in common and took the vow to persevere in the Society and to go to the missions designated by the S. Congregation of Propaganda. Pope Pio VI and the two cardd. Spinelli and Imperiali belonged to this society.
BATTISTINI
BIBL.: F. Luxardo, Vita dell'illustre servo di Dio Domenico Francesco Olivieri, fondatore della Congregazione dei missionari suburbani in Genova e della Congreg. dei B. in Roma, Genoa 1871; J. Hergenröther and F. Ph. Kaulen, s. V. in Kirchenlexikon, I, Freiburg im Br. 1886, col. 1970. Giovanni B. Tragella
Cite this article
“BATTISTINI.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II (1949), p. 624. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/battistini.