SERVANTS OF CHARITY. - Religious congregation of priests and laymen founded by the servant of God d. GUANELLA, LUIGI (v.) with the purpose, in addition to works of apostolate also in mission lands, of sheltering and assisting chronically ill elderly persons and mentally deficient and semi-deficient children, and of educating abandoned orphans.
Initially called Sons of the S. Heart, in 1904 they changed their name to that of S. d. C. The first associates, who gathered around the founder in 1895-96, pronounced religious vows on 24 March 1908. In Aug. 1912 the decree of praise was granted; in 1928 definitive approval followed. The Constitutions, however, drawn up in accordance with canonical legislation on the basis of the various regulations left by the founder, were approved provisionally in 1928 and definitively in 1935. Given the eminently social purpose of the institution, which at present numbers approximately 500 professed religious, it has assumed an ever broader development with the foundation of 35 houses in Italy, 5 in Switzerland, and 15 in Latin America. Various houses of formation and novitiate are in Italy, Argentina, and Brazil. The young Alessandro Mazzucchi (1878-90), mons. Aurelio Bacciarini (1873-1935), bishop of Daulia and apostolic administrator of Ticino, and Fr. Pietro Ometti (1866-1943) have distinguished the Congregation by their holiness.