PIOUS RURAL CATECHISTS. - A congregation whose purpose is religious assistance in the countryside and the establishment of agricultural schools for the children of peasants. It is composed of the Congregation of the P. O., to which was united that of the Rural Catechists by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Religious (28 June 1943).
In the 1600s the venerable Carlo Carafa, with some companions, gave rise in Naples, in the church of S. Maria di tutti i beni, to the P. O., a company of secular priests living in community who dedicated themselves to the explanation of Christian doctrine, to missions to the people and to the ecclesiastical ministry in general. Forced to leave their first seat, Carafa and his companions in 1605 erected a house at S. Maria dei Monti, outside Naples, where they established the novitiate. During the founder's lifetime three houses were opened: at S. Maria di Monterotondo (Caserta), at S. Giorgio and at S. Nicola in Naples, which became the general house. Gregory XV with the brief Ex quo divina Maiestas (21 April 1621) approved the Institute and the Constitutions drawn up by Carafa. In 1689 the P. O. opened a house in Rome, at S. Balbina, ceded to them by the Vatican Chapter. In 1704 they moved to S. Lorenzo ai Monti near Macel de' Corvi, and under Clement XI to S. Maria dei Monti, where the direction of the College for catechumens and neophytes was entrusted to them, and in 1730 they also founded the Academy of Liturgy. They likewise established another house in Trastevere, and there had the church of S. Giuseppe alla Lungara built to a design by Giuseppe Ruscari Sassi (1730). The P. O. did not take vows, observed great poverty and practiced frequent fasts. They were governed by a general prepositor and by four consultors elected by the general Chapter.
They distinguished themselves in Naples during the plague of 1653, in which almost all the members perished in assisting the afflicted. They had a certain renown in the Quietist controversy, since a cenacle had formed among them, in which the general prepositor p. A. de Torres was the most eminent personality and p. P. Gisoli a fluent writer, "a typical example of composite Baroque religiosity." In the last century the community of Rome carried on a modest publishing activity, publishing among other things the acts of Pius IX.
The Congregation of the P. O., having always remained limited to the aforementioned houses of Naples and Rome, in recent times was reduced to the general house of S. Nicola, but for lack of subjects even this was on the point of closing, when in 1928, at Montalto Uffugo (Cosenza), Msgr. Gaetano Mauro gave rise to a new institute consecrated to the care of the most abandoned souls of the countryside and of rural villages with works suited to the new times. In 1930 the Institute became of diocesan right with the approval of the bishop, and in 1943, by decree of the Holy See, the old and the new Institute merged into one alone, since the purpose was identical. The new times have brought new ideas and new means of apostolate, and the Institute today is directed toward restoring to the peasant the serene joy of rural life, toward halting the scourge of urbanism, educating the little country children to feel all the nobility of agricultural work. For this purpose it holds missions among the peasants who live far from the parish, opens agricultural colonies and educational institutes. Today it numbers 6 houses and about thirty religious.
Bibliography3 works
Piero Sannazzaro