MISSIONARIES OF THE HOLY FAMILY. - Religious congregation founded in 1895 by Fr. G. B. Berthier at Grave, near Bois-le-Duc in Holland. The purpose of the Institute is to foster ecclesiastical vocations that could not otherwise be realized because of the poverty or age of the candidates, and, to this end, to multiply, in the countries where such vocations flourish, houses for preparing the greatest possible number of priests to be sent to missionary lands. The Institute developed successfully and, at the founder’s death in 1908, numbered 25 priests and 183 students. In 1911 it received the decree of praise and in 1939 definitive approval.
The first missionaries departed for Brazil, then for Argentina, Chile, Borneo, Java, and northern Norway. In the latter country an apostolic prefecture has been entrusted to them. Today the Congregation has 978 professed members and about a thousand scholastics and novices.