FIGLI DEL SACRO CUORE DI GESÙ. - This Congregation, dependent on the S. Congregazione di Propaganda, is also known by the name of the Institute of the African Missions of Verona. In 1867 Mons. Daniele Comboni began in Verona a seminary for Nigrizia, which was subsequently canonically erected by decree of 8 Dec. 1871 by the bishop of Verona; his successor, Mons. Francesco Sogaro, transformed it (1885) into a religious Congregation. It received the «decretum laudis» in 1895 and definitive approval of its constitutions in 1910. In 1923 the German branch became autonomous, constituting the Congregation of missionary F. del S. C. di G.
The purpose of the Institute is the conversion of unbelievers, and particularly of Africans. It currently has 25 houses in Italy, England, Portugal, and the United States, and exercises missionary apostolate in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Uganda, Egypt, Eritrea, Mozambique, among the Negroes and Indians of the United States, and in Mexico. It has more than 800 professed members, 160 novices, and 600 aspirants.