SOCIETY OF THE DIVINE WORD (VERBITI). - A religious congregation composed of priests and coadjutor brothers, founded at Steyl (Holland) on 8 September 1875 by Arnold Janssen.
It received the approval of the Holy See on 2 May 1901 and the privilege of exemption on 6 August 1943. The Society has 4,813 religious, of whom 2,305 are priests, and is divided into 16 provinces (7 in Europe, 8 in America, 1 in the Philippine Islands), 16 vice-provinces (4 in Europe, 10 in Asia, 1 in Australia) and 109 communities.
The general curia is located in Rome, where the international college is also situated. The superior general is elected for 12 years by the general chapter, to which the legislative authority belongs. The superior general in turn appoints the provincial and local superiors, and assigns to each religious his field of work without regard to his province of origin. The special purpose of the Society is the evangelization of unbelievers. All its other activities are directed toward this, such as preaching, spiritual exercises and popular missions among Catholics, the care of souls in countries with a great scarcity of priests (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Philippine Islands), the formation of the clergy, the education and instruction of youth in secondary and higher schools (the Catholic universities of Peking in China, of San Carlos in Cebu in the Philippines, of Nagoya in Japan), the publication of missionary magazines and of good literature, the propagation of devotion to the Most Holy Trinity, especially to the Holy Spirit and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
At present the Society has in China 4 archdioceses, 5 dioceses and 3 apostolic prefectures. Subsequently other missions were entrusted to the Society in Africa, in New Guinea, in the Japan, in the Philippine Islands, in Indonesia and in India; it has 20 missions dependent on Propaganda and works in 44 dioceses of Latin America and of the Philippine Islands.
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Enrico Kross