MINIMS OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS. - On 1 May 1868 the Servant of God Clelia Barbieri and two of her companions, under the direction of the parish priest d. Gaetano Guidi, began community life at Budrie (diocese of Bologna), devoting themselves to the education of children and the visiting of the sick.
Only three years later the pious foundress died; but the Institute founded by her continued to live and develop. Approved by the archbishop of Bologna first ad experimentum (1879) and then definitively (1905), it had its Constitutions approved by the same archbishop on 26 Sept. 1926, and received the decree of praise and its first approval by the Holy See on 20 March 1934. Definitive approval dates from 24 Jan. 1949.
The sisters devote themselves to the Christian and civic education of children in kindergartens, schools, orphanages, boarding schools, to catechetical instruction in parishes, and to the care and service of the sick in hospitals and at home. In 1947 there were 249 professed sisters and 19 novices, distributed among 32 houses.