PIA SOCIETÀ TORINESE DI SAN GIUSEPPE. — It was founded in Turin on 19 March 1873 by the servant of God, Father Leonardo Murialdo, to provide poor and abandoned youth with Christian education and professional and civic formation under the protection of St Joseph. D. Giulio Costantino and D. Eugenio Reffo were its first able collaborators in the noble undertaking, which subsequently developed into schools, oratories, agricultural and vocational, literary and technical schools, family homes, after-school programs, boarding and semi-boarding schools, parishes and missions, together with various works of social and cultural assistance, recreation and, above all, religion, in the most popular centres.
From Turin the Congregation spread to Rivoli, Pinerolo, Vigone, Sommariva del Bosco, Pocapaglia, Milan, Bergamo and S. Margherita Ligure. From Piedmont, following the same programme, it spread through the Veneto and Emilia: to Venice, Padua, Treviso, Oderzo, Conegliano, Vi-
1921. Its exclusive purpose: the conversion of unbelievers. Government: superior general and four councillors.
The Xaverians, who set out in 1904, founded the apostolic prefecture of Western Honan, which was later divided into the dioceses of Chengchow and Loyang. At present they are working in the aforementioned dioceses, in Kiangsi and in Tientsin. They have a house of studies and an indigenous novitiate in Beijing, and a procuration in Shanghai. In Japan they are in the dioceses of
cenza, Montecchio Maggiore, Arcugnano, Thiene, Riva del Garda, Modena and Cesena, welcomed and esteemed by the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, and loved and supported by the youth and the people. In 1904, Pope Pius X summoned the Congregation to Rome, in the Tiburtino district, a sensitive and difficult field of social and religious apostolate, where it was able to develop the programme of moral regeneration on a broader scale and with more abundant fruits. From the capital it spread to Bufalotta, S. Marinella, Albano, Naples, S. Giuseppe Vesuviano, Foggia, Lucera, Sezze, Segozia, Dipignano and Avezzano, with various works always benefiting youth and the people. As the crowning achievement of its apostolic life, in 1904 the Congregation also undertook a mission in Cyrenaica. In the environs of Benghazi it founded primary schools, schools of arts and trades, an important agricultural school, and a clinic much frequented by the Arabs of the oases and the desert, where, by healing the body, many souls of children and adults were saved; later, the Josephine apostolate also extended into Tripolitania, in the capital, at Sidi Mesri and at Ain Zara.
In 1914 the Josephites crossed the ocean and from Brazil went to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and the United States, carrying out, in internal missions and also among the indigenous peoples, through flourishing and varied works for youth and the people, the founder’s programme. The General Curia was transferred in 1918 from Turin to Rome, in the Tiburtino district.