CONGREGAZIONE DI GESÙ E MARIA (EUDISTI). — Founded in the seventeenth century by St Giovanni
CONGR. DI GESÙ E MARIA - CONGREGAZIONE DI S. ETUDES (v.), this C. is contemporary with three other celebrated French institutions: the Oratory, the Congregation of the Mission, and the Society of S. Sulpice, with which it is associated by an identical unity of purpose and organization. Like the Oratorians, the Lazarists, and the Sulpicians, the Eudists have as their essential aim the formation of the clergy in seminaries according to the directives of the Council of Trent. Thus, after long prayer, and encouraged also by the advice of illustrious personages, among them Cardinal Richelieu, he founded at Caen in Normandy, on 25 March 1643, the C. of J. and M. to direct those seminaries where candidates for ordination were to be formed in the virtues proper to their state.
Cardinal De Bérulle, l'Olier, and S. Vincent de Paul, founders respectively of the Oratorians, the Sulpicians, and the Lazarists, had not considered it advisable to bind the members of their institutions by religious vows, in order to allow them to work under the immediate jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops, for whom they were to form the clergy. Following their example, S. Giovanni Eudes made his institute not a religious congregation properly so called, but an ecclesiastical congregation, of the kind that canon law would later call « Societates virorum in comuni viventium sine votis ». In the spirit of the founder, all this had not only a practical but also a mystical rationale. He knew well that the bishops would willingly entrust their seminaries only to priests entirely subject to their jurisdiction: thus free from religious vows, which exempt religious from episcopal authority.
The government of the C. was modeled on that of the Oratory, to which the founder himself had formerly belonged. Supreme authority resides in the general assembly, which appoints the superior general and meets periodically to oversee his administration. During the interval between assemblies, the superior general, who is appointed for life, possesses the supreme power of the C. and is assisted by assistants appointed by the assembly. These have decisive authority with the superior general in administrative affairs, and merely consultative authority in other matters.
At the death of S. Giovanni Eudes (19 August 1660), the institute directed six very important seminaries in Normandy and Brittany: Caen, Lisieux, Rouen, Coutances, Evreux, and Rennes. Subsequently the Eudists were called to other parts of France, chiefly the central and western regions, so that on the eve of the Revolution they directed about twenty diocesan seminaries. The C. received the decree of praise on 25 July 1851.
To inspire in seminarians the highest esteem for their vocation, Eudes wished to institute a special feast in honor of the « Priesthood of Jesus Christ and of the saints, priests and Levites ». The office and the Mass, composed entirely by him and approved by several bishops, exalted the excellence of the priesthood and recalled the examples of all the saints of the ecclesiastical order. Another service rendered to the Church by the Eudists was their intrepid struggle against Jansenism. When the civil constitution of the clergy subsequently forced priests to choose between their faith and their freedom, few of the clergy formed by the Eudists defected, while the overwhelming majority remained faithful to the See of Peter; others sealed their attachment to the Church with their blood. Of the 191 priests killed in hatred of the faith in Paris, in the Carmelite prison (September 1792), 42 had been pupils of the Eudists. The C. itself numbers among its members four martyrs, including its superior general, Fr. Habert, confessor to King Louis XVI; they were beatified by Pius XI in October 1926. In 1816 the survivors of the revolutionary tempest were able to reconstitute themselves as a regular community. It was too late to resume the direction of the seminaries already entrusted to them, which in the meantime had passed to other religious institutions. Thus the Eudists were enabled to pursue the secondary aim of their institute:
their missionary apostolate in the countryside and teaching in colleges.
The houses at Rennes, Redom, Versailles, Valognes, and Besançon were established in this way. During the religious persecution of 1880 under Ferry and of 1905 under Combes, the Eudists were expelled from France, to which they were able to return only after 1918. The persecution nevertheless had an unexpected and excellent result. Exiled from their homeland, the Eudists went to North and South America, where they continued their work of forming the clergy in seminaries. In Canada and Latin America they were able to organize promising provinces. The province of Canada, with many houses, including the regional seminary of Halifax, is in full development; likewise the province of Colombia-Venezuela, where the fathers direct about a dozen seminaries and carry out missionary and parish-ministry activities, bringing everywhere a breath of new life. More recently, at the pressing appeal of the bishops, they established themselves in Brazil and Chile. The C. of the Eudists has never been very numerous. It numbers a little more than 500 members. Their literary activity was initially limited above all to practical works for ecclesiastical instruction in their houses of formation. Nevertheless, in the field of spirituality and in the history of devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, they have made a notable and universally acknowledged contribution. Moreover, their studies on the life and works of S. Giovanni Eudes have helped to clarify many points in the rich and intricate history of the seventeenth century.