MARIAN CONGREGATIONS. - A religious association instituted and promoted by the Society of Jesus, with the purpose of forming outstanding members of any state or condition to attend to their own sanctification, apostolate, and the defense of the Church, especially through a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Common Rules, art. 1). It differs from a confraternity, whose purpose is the conduct of public worship and requires a special habit (CIC, can. 707); from a Pious Union, whose purpose is the exercise of certain works of piety or charity; and from a Third Order, which is necessarily dependent on a religious Order, whereas the M.C. has no such dependency (can. 702). It also differs from the “Center” of social works and from associations of Catholic Action both in purpose and in organic and hierarchical form, although none of the notes proper to Catholic Action are lacking in them, so that they may be called, according to the apostolic constitution Bis saeculari of Pius XII (27 Sept. 1948, AAS, 40 [1948], pp. 393-402), “Catholic Action under the patronage and inspiration of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (ibid., p. 398).
I. HISTORY
To free himself from anything that might hinder his strictly priestly ministry was a principle dear to St. Ignatius; yet, not wishing to sacrifice any good initiative, he entrusted their care to others. Thus, in 1547, he gathered at the Gesù a nucleus of twelve noblemen whom he formed in the spiritual life, the practice of zeal, and charity. At his suggestion and on this model, his principal disciples had promoted, throughout Italy and especially in Sicily, congregations or companies or societies that multiplied rapidly. The young Belgian Jesuit Jean Leunis founded one in 1563 among the class he taught at the Roman College. The following year, the group, which had spread to the entire college, numbered 73 young men and was called the Congregation of the Annunciation, after the title of the college church at that time.From the Roman College, it spread to the other colleges of the Society of Jesus, and within twenty years such sodalities multiplied everywhere. With the bull Omnipotentis Dei (5 Dec. 1584), Gregory XIII, noting that it had become a worldwide center of attraction, canonically erected the M.C. of the Roman College, constituting it as the Primaria, to which the others were to be aggregated. The Primaria was subdivided into various branches, so that the first sodality was given the name of Prima Primaria. From the outset, the M.C. played a notable part in the reaction against the heresy, schism, and Islam that assailed Europe, in the propagation of the faith among unbelievers, and in the spiritual improvement of both secular and regular clergy. Benedict XIV, with the bull Gloriosae Dominae (1748), praised the M.C. for the great good they accomplished in the world and enriched them with new indulgences and privileges. Such apostolic success aroused the hatred of the Church’s adversaries. Even before the suppression of the Society of Jesus, the M.C. had been dissolved in various nations. Clement XIV, whose brief Dominus ac Redemptor (1773) seemed likely to submerge them, hastened to save them from shipwreck. Refusing the name, Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus. While the essential characteristics remained unchanged, some modifications were made. Previously, the M.C. existed only in houses dependent on the Jesuits and only for men and young men: this double limitation disappeared and caused the M.C. to increase in number, if not always in quality.
As early as 1717, various Marian associations of women had requested to be aggregated to the Prima Primaria of the Roman College. The Holy See empowered the General, Fr. Muzio Vitelleschi, to aggregate some of them. Benedict XIV, with the brief Quo tibi (1751), extended the faculty to all the feminine M.C. erected in churches of the Jesuits; Leo XII extended it to all the others (1825).
Each year about a thousand new M.C. are aggregated to the Prima Primaria, from every nation, rite, and condition, the great majority (95%) erected outside the houses of the Society. The aggregations made amount today to about 75,000.
II. SPIRIT AND RULES
At first glance, the purpose of the M.C. seems very vague: worship and service of Mary, personal sanctification, salvation of one’s neighbor, defense of the Church. In reality, however, the end is one: a son of the Mother of God, the member, led by her to Jesus, lives through Mary with such intensity the life of Christ that, by an irresistible inner impulse, he overflows into works of zeal and charity. He becomes “the minister of Mary and, so to speak, her visible hands on earth” (Pius XII on the fiftieth anniversary of his consecration in the M.C., 21 Jan. 1945).This purpose presupposes, first of all, rigorous selection—not merely by the elimination of the unworthy, but by the choice and co-optation of those judged suitable and willing to pursue it effectively. Nor is this first screening sufficient. The candidates, after being instructed, formed, and tested, commit themselves for life with a consecration to the Madonna that, although not a vow, obliges them under penalty of sanctions that may even lead to exclusion from the M.C.
Its motto is: “to form the chosen element for the masses, and to reach the masses through the chosen element.” Everything is oriented toward conquest both in breadth and in depth. In breadth, through the unlimited variety of religious, apostolic, and charitable works. In depth, through personal action in domestic, civil, and professional life, which may be called “apostolate in one’s own environment.” To facilitate this action, the M.C. have been organized from the beginning by categories, according to age, condition, and profession, so as to foster both the formation of the member and his influence on his environment through such homogeneity.
Distinct from one another, the M.C. are linked and collaborate through periodicals, congresses, federations or unions (since 1948 also in Italy: V. below), through national or regional secretaries, and principally through the central secretary in Rome, who, without exercising jurisdiction, has the task of responding to the needs, desires, and questions of each, either directly or through his organ Aciis, established in 1924.
The M.C. do not depend even on the Primaria, to which they are aggregated only to share in spiritual favors (can. 722), nor on the General of the Jesuits, whose intervention, outside the houses of the Society, is limited to aggregating at the request of the Ordinary, after he has completed or authorized their canonical erection.
The aggregation to the Prima Primaria with participation in its privileges and indulgences pertains to the General of the Jesuits, to whom also belongs the establishment of the rules of the M.C. that have their seat in the houses and churches of the Jesuits (the others depend on the Ordinary even for the formulation of the rules). The first rules were promulgated by Fr. Claudio Acquaviva in 1587; others were promulgated by Fr. P. Beckx in 1855; the latest, under the title of Common Rules, by Fr. F. S. Wernz (8 Dec. 1910), who adapted them to the new decrees of the Holy See and to the changed conditions of the times. Conformity with the spirit of these rules is a condition for aggregation to the Prima Primaria.