PRIESTS OF SANTA MARIA OF TINCHEBRAY. – 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 the College of S. Maria in Tinchebray, with the help of several priests, who took religious vows; he established a congregation of brothers similar to that of Christian Instruction of Ploermel.
This religious family grew rapidly; but in 1880 it split: the brothers, who provided Christian instruction in some twenty parishes, joined the Institute of Ploermel, while the congregation of priests took the name of S. di S. M. In 1898, the Decretum laudis made it an institute of pontifical right, which was definitively approved in 1939. In 1902, when the struggle against religious orders broke out in France, the Institute saw all its colleges closed and its fathers dispersed. The younger priests among them left for western Canada, where many European immigrants were then arriving; to seek them out, educate them, establish parishes, and 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 Montréal they also have the parish of Charlemagne, with an attached house of formation.
The religious who remained in their homeland conduct an elementary school in the diocese of Quimper; in Tinchebray and its environs they have an agricultural school for young people from the countryside, while other fathers devote themselves to parish missions. They have also taken charge of the parish of Holy Cross at Ivry. From the earliest days of their foundation, the S. di S. M. had a special devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows; in 1908 they obtained from the Holy See the establishment of an association of prayer and apostolate on behalf of the dying under the title “Association of Our Lady of a Good Death.” The work grew wonderfully; within a decade it had spread throughout the world, and today numbers several million members.
The Institute currently (1952) numbers 50 religious, priests and laymen.