CONGREGATION OF S. PAOLO – General house – Rome.
Arona, soon abandoned. Then, almost simultaneously, boarding schools for the nobility were opened in Milan and other cities; for these, the General Chapter of 1662 decreed the compilation of the Regulae (Externarum scholorum disciplina, by Fr. Gorino, Milan 1665). The boarding schools encountered greater resistance, which was never entirely extinguished, until 1689, when a three-year experiment was authorized and subsequently confirmed at Montargis; this was followed in 1723 by the College of the Nobility in Milan and later by others.
In the eighteenth century the Barnabites were also among the infidels. Five of the forty fathers who responded to Clement XI’s request (1715) to accompany Msgr. Mezzabarba in the legation to the Emperor of China concerning the question of the Chinese rites preferred, after that mission had failed, rather than abandon the field, to disperse throughout it: Fr. Cesati in Cochinchina, Fr. D’Alessandri in Tonkin, Fr. Rasini in Canton, Fr. Ferrari in Peking, philosopher at the imperial court, and Fr. Calchi in the kingdoms of Ava and Pegu, in Burma, which Benedict XIV definitively entrusted to the Barnabites in 1740. It was a magnificent page of history, written for almost a century (until 1832) in the blood and sweat of a handful of heroic priests and scholars of languages and natural sciences. The eighteenth century was also the age of greatest literary splendor.
At the end of the century and in the early nineteenth century, the Barnabites shared the fate of the other religious institutes. With the Napoleonic suppression of 1810, only S. Alessandro in Milan remained. Through the efforts of the fathers, later cardinals, Fontana and Lambruschini, the Order was reestablished in Rome (1814); in 1825, at the initiative of Fr. Mantegazza and through the generosity of Count Andreani and Marquis Arconati Visconti, S. Barnaba and the Carrobiolo were bought back from the treasury. Especially worthy of mention in the nineteenth century are the work of Fathers Redolfi and Villoresi for the oratories, and that of the Apostolate of Prayer, introduced into Italy by Fr. Maresca and directed for fifty years, until 1916, by the Barnabites, with the journals Il Messaggero and Il Devoto. The restoration in France in 1857 was connected with the work of Fr. Schouvaloff, continued by Fr. Tondini, for the conversion of Russia, and with that of Fathers Moro, Tondini, and Almerici for the missions in Sweden and Norway (1864–80). The new expulsion under the Waldeck-Rousseau laws (1901) opened the way to foundations in Belgium and Brazil. At present the Order has houses in Italy, France, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, divided into provinces, to which must be added the mission of Guamà (Upper Brazil) and the chaplaincy of the Italian legation in Kâbul (Afghanistan). It engages in the sacred ministry in parishes and sanctuaries, but especially in the education of youth through oratories, Catholic Action associations, boarding schools, and day schools (Alla Querce in Florence, S. Luigi in Bologna, Carlo Alberto in Moncalieri, B. Bianchi in Naples, etc.).
Many religious were distinguished for holiness: St. Antonio M. Zaccaria, St. Alessandro Sauli, Blessed Francesco Saverio Bianchi (v.); Venerable Castelli and Canale; the co-founders, Bascapè, Dossena, Pagni, Recrosio, Redolfi, etc.; for ecclesiastical dignities: Cardinals Gerdil, Fontana, Lambruschini, Bilio, and others; the bishops: C. Bascapè, “the holy Charles of Novara,” Guérin, friend and successor of St. Francesco di Sales, Giarda, martyr of obedience to the pope, Nerini, martyr of chastity in Burma, Recrosio, apostle of Nice, together with many others; for diplomatic offices: Boerio, Mazenta, Corona, Paravicini, Pentorio, Asinari, Gorini, Boldoni, Rossi, Gattinara, Grandi; in the sciences, letters, and arts: Bellarini, Venerio, Rossignoli, Rotario, Giribaldi, Gerdil, Semeria, Canale, Griffini, Quadrupani, Teppa, writers on asceticism; Corio and Vercellone, biblical scholars; Tornielli, historian, and Gavanto, liturgist, in whose memory, by pontifical privilege, a Barnabite has a seat by right among the consultors of the S. Congregation of Rites; Baranzano, Pini, Gerdil, philosophers; Asquini, Caronni, Ungarelli, Bruzza, archaeologists; De Regis, Frisi, Mariano Fontana, Configliacchi, Cavalleri, Denza, Bertelli, mathematical physicists; Rosasco, Corticelli, Branda, Venturini, Notari, Niceron, Boffito, men of letters and bibliographers; Sacchi, musician; Mazenta and Binago, architects.
The Barnabite coat of arms consists of three mountains surmounted by a cross, flanked by the initials of Paul the Apostle, with, sometimes, the sword and palm intertwined beneath it and the Pauline motto: An gladius? The principal archives are in Milan, S. Barnaba (the mother house), and in Rome, S. Carlo ai Catinari. The latter contains the iconographic collection in the two large atlases compiled by Fr. Vercellone. – Vedi tav. XIV.