Congregation of Jesus and Mary (Eudists)

CONGREGATION OF JESUS AND MARY (EUDISTS). - Founded in the 17th century by St. John

Eudes (v.), this C. is contemporary with three other celebrated French institutions: the Oratory, the Congregation of the Mission, and the Society of St. Sulpice, to which it is matched by an identical commonality of aims and organization. Like the Oratorians, the Lazarists and the Sulpicians, the Eudists have as their essential purpose the formation of the clergy in seminaries according to the directives of the Council of Trent. Therefore, after long prayers, urged on also by the advice of illustrious personages, among them Card. Richelieu, he established at Caen in Normandy, on 25 March 1643, the C. of J. and M. to direct those seminaries where ordinands were to be formed in the virtues proper to their state.

Card. de Bérulle, Olier and St. Vincent de Paul, founders respectively of the Oratorians, the Sulpicians and the Lazarists, had not deemed it opportune to bind the members of their institutions by religious vows, so as to allow them to work under the immediate jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops whose clergy they were to form. Following their example, St. John Eudes made his institute not a religious c. properly so called, but an ecclesiastical c., of the kind that canon law would later call "Societates virorum in comuni viventium sine votis". In the founder's mind all this had a reason not only practical but also mystical. He well knew that bishops would willingly entrust their seminaries only to priests entirely subject to their jurisdiction: therefore free from the religious vows that exempt regulars from episcopal authority.

The government of the C. was modeled on that of the Oratory, to which the founder himself had first belonged. The supreme authority resides in the general assembly, which appoints the superior general and which meets periodically to oversee its administration. In the interval between assemblies the superior general, who is appointed for life, holds the supreme power of the C., and is assisted by assistants, appointed by the assembly, who have decisive power with the general in matters of an administrative nature, and only consultative power in other questions.

At the death of St. John Eudes (19 Aug. 1660) the institute directed 6 very important seminaries in Normandy and Brittany: Caen, Lisieux, Rouen, Coutances, Evreux and Rennes. Subsequently the Eudists were called to other places in France, mainly in the center and the west, so that on the eve of the Revolution they were directing about twenty diocesan seminaries. The C. received the decree of praise on 25 July 1851.

To inspire in seminarians the greatest 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, entirely composed by him, 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 the intrepid struggle against Jansenism. When later the civil constitution of the clergy obliged priests to choose between their faith and liberty, few of the clergy formed by the Eudists defected, while the vast majority remained faithful to the See of Peter; others sealed with their blood their attachment to the Church. Of 191 priests killed out of hatred for the faith in Paris in the prison of the Carmelites (Sept. 1792), 42 had been pupils of the Eudists. The C. itself numbers among its members 4 martyrs, among them its superior general, Fr. Habert, confessor of King Louis XVI, beatified by Pius XI in Oct. 1926. In 1816 the survivors of the revolutionary storm 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 had meanwhile passed to other religious institutions. In this way the Eudists were given the opportunity to carry out the secondary purpose of their institute: missionary apostolate in the countryside and teaching in colleges.

Thus arose the houses of Rennes, Redon, Versailles, Valognes, Besançon. In the religious persecution of 1880 under Ferry and of 1905 under Combes, the Eudists were driven out of France, where 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 for the formation of the clergy in seminaries. In Canada and in Latin America they have been able to organize promising provinces. The province of Canada, with many houses, among them 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 on missionary activity and parochial ministry, bringing everywhere a breath of new life. Recently, at the pressing appeal of the bishops, they have 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 limited first of all to works of a practical character for ecclesiastical teaching 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 contribution universally recognized. Moreover their studies on the life and works of St. John Eudes have contributed to the clarification of many points in the very rich and intricate history of the 17th century.

Giuseppe Hamon