PRIESTS OF SAINT MARY OF TIN-CHEBRAY. — They were founded in 1851 by Fr. Carlo Duguey, then assistant parish priest of Tinchebray, in the diocese of Séez, France.
Fr Duguey first opened in Tinchebray the College of Saint Mary, with the help of some priests who took religious vows; he thus gave life to a congregation of brothers similar to that of the Christian Instruction of Ploërmel.
This religious family grew rapidly; but in 1880 it split: the brothers, who provided Christian instruction in about twenty parishes, joined the Institute of Ploërmel, and the congregation of priests took the name of Priests of Saint Mary. In 1898, the Decretum laudis made it an institute of pontifical right, which was definitively approved in 1939. In 1902, when in France the struggle against religious orders began, the Institute saw all its colleges closed and its priests dispersed. The younger priests went to western Canada, where many European emigrants were then arriving; to trace them, educate them, create parishes, build churches: such was their work, first in the diocese of St Albert, then in that of Prince Albert, where they still exercise their ministry. In the diocese of Montreal they also have the parish of Charlemagne, with an attached formation house.
The religious who remained in France run an elementary school in the diocese of Quimper; in Tinchebray and the surrounding area they have an agricultural school for rural youth, while other priests devote themselves to parochial mission work. They have also taken over the parish of Saint Croix in Ivry, which they have served since the early days of their foundation. The Priests of Saint Mary have always had a special devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows; in 1908 they obtained from the Holy See the erection of an association of prayer and apostolate for the dying under the title of “Association of Our Lady of the Good Death.” The work grew wonderfully; within a decade it spread throughout the world and today numbers several million members.
The Institute currently (1952) has 50 religious, both priests and lay brothers.