SERVI DELLA CARITÀ. – A religious congregation of priests and laymen founded by the Servant of God Luigi Guanella (q.v.) with the aim, in addition to apostolic works even in mission lands, of sheltering and assisting the chronically ill elderly and children who are deficient or semi-deficient, and of educating abandoned orphans.
Initially called Figli del S. Cuore, in 1904 they changed their name to that of Servi della Carità. The first associates, gathered around the founder in 1895–96, pronounced their religious vows on 24 March 1908. In August 1912 they received the decree of praise, definitive approval came in 1928, while the Constitutions—drawn up in accordance with canon law 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 now numbers about fifty professed religious, it has continued to expand, establishing thirty-five houses in Italy, Switzerland, and fifteen in Latin America. Various houses of formation and novitiate are located in Italy, Argentina, and Brazil. The young Alessandro Mazzucchi (1878–90), Bishop Aurelio Bacciarini (1873–1935), bishop of Daulia and apostolic administrator of Ticino, and Fr. Pietro Osmenti (1866–1943) have distinguished the Congregation by their holiness.