MISSIONARIES OF OUR LADY OF THE HOLY GUARD. - Congregation of secular priests, Minim tertiaries, established in 1700 by the priest Aless. Martin (1630-1703), parish priest of St. Desiderius, in the diocese of Carpentras, in Provence, in collaboration with the priest Domenico Bertet (1671-1739), who was its first superior, and with Fr. G. d'Etienne, a Minim (1637-1712), a staunch supporter of the Institute, author of its first regulations and the first to direct its spiritual guidance.

The purpose of the Congregation was the formation of pious and zealous priests, by means of a model seminary, courses of missions in the cities and the countryside, and spiritual exercises for the laity and the clergy. Approved by the Archbishop of Avignon on 6 January 1719, Benedict XIV approved its new rules with the bull Universalis of 11 March 1743. The Congregation spread rapidly and gave France learned and distinguished prelates, and some archbishops and cardinals. The French Revolution swept it away in its whirlwind, but no member of the Institute took the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. At that time it passed into Italy, with the help of Cardinal Maury, himself formerly a member of the Congregation and later Bishop of Montefiascone. Various attempts at re-establishment in France remained fruitless, and the beginning of the 20th century saw the definitive decline of this institution, which had struggled strenuously against the raging heresies and for the religious rebirth of France.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: P. De Rians, La vie du p. d'Etienne, Aix 1714; G. Granget, Histoire du diocèse d'Avignon, II, Avignon 1862, XV-XVIII, passim, with bibl.: L. Reynaud, N. D. de Ste Garde, etc., Carpentras 1919; G. Roberti, Disegno storico dell'Ordine dei Minimi, III, Rome 1922, pp. 474-75; G. Moretti, Il p. Girolamo d'Etienne, in Charitas, 4 (1929), pp. 59-65.

Gennaro Moretti

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Missionaries of Our Lady of the Holy Guard

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