SACERDOTI DELLE SCUOLE DI CARITÀ. - Religious congregation, also known as the Istituto Cavanis, founded in Venice by the servants of God Antonangelo and Marcantonio Cavanis, on 2 May 1802, under the title of “Congregation of secular clerics of the schools of charity.”
The first school was opened on 2 Jan. 1804, and the Patriarch of Venice approved them on 16 Sept. 1819. Gregory XVI granted the decree of praise on 13 Aug. 1831 and that of approval on 21 June 1836. But the Institute was not canonically erected as a religious institution until 16 July 1838. Its Constitutions were approved on 23 Sept. 1839 and reapproved, with the introduction of perpetual vows, on 14 Aug. 1891. After the publication of the Code, they were revised and approved on 23 May 1930 and 18 June 1937.
The purpose of the Institute is the Christian education of youth through “free” schooling in all its forms (primary, secondary, arts and crafts) and through the work of closed spiritual exercises held in the houses of the Institute. The religious are divided into two classes: clerics and laymen, all of whom take simple vows, first for three years and then perpetual. At present there are 118 religious and 10 novices, with 9 houses. An offshoot of the Institute, spiritually connected with the spirit of the founders, is the secular Institute of the Figlie del S. Nome, approved as a secular institute by the archbishop of Lucca on 12 Dec. 1948.