MARIANITE DELLA SANTA CROCE. – Institute founded at Le Mans in 1841 by the priest B. A. Moreau and by Leocadia Gascoin. It received the decree of praise on 19 Feb. 1867, together with temporary approval of the Constitutions, which were definitively approved on 28 Oct. 1885 and again, revised in accordance with the Code, on 10 Apr. 1926.
The sisters engage in the instruction and Christian education of young women, especially the poor and abandoned, through schools, boarding houses, vocational institutes, and orphanages; as well as in the care of the sick at home, in hospitals, and in clinics. They form a single class and take simple, temporary, and perpetual vows. The taking of a fourth vow, that of the Foreign Missions, is optional.
At the end of 1948, the sisters numbered 436, with 29 novices, distributed across 42 houses.