SOCIETY OF MARY (MARIANISTS)
Congregation founded in 1817 at Bordeaux by G. G. Chaminade (v.).
The seven first members of the Institute—two clerics, three lay teachers, and two artisans—admitted to profession of vows on 2 Oct. 1817, gave it from the outset a distinctive and novel character, inasmuch as clerics and laymen are religious on an equal footing, with the same vows, the same active and passive rights, save for certain offices reserved to priests. An outgrowth of the Congregation of the Madeleine at Bordeaux, founded by Chaminade himself in 1801, the new institution followed the same principles, coordinating the collaboration of priests and laymen in the manifold works of modern apostolate. By the vow of stability, the Marianists consecrate themselves irrevocably to the Blessed Virgin, and in memory of this consecration they wear a gold ring on the right hand.
From 1817 to 1830, colleges and popular schools were opened at Bordeaux and in various French cities, but the founder’s aim was the Normal Schools for the training of Christian teachers. Two were opened at Saint-Rémy and at Besançon, the latter suppressed during the disturbances of 1830.
From 1835 onward, a promising development began in France and in European countries, and today the Society of Mary is present in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Africa, the United States, Canada, the Pacific Islands, China, and Japan, with 2,525 professed religious and 158 houses distributed in 12 provinces. There are 918 postulants, 189 novices, 360 scholastics, and 73 seminarians. The decree of praise was granted in 1839, that of approbation of the Institute and its Constitutions in 1865; final approbation of the Constitutions came in 1891. The Generalate is at Rome.
Religious congregation founded at Belley by the Venerable Jean-Claude Colin (v.) on 22 June 1825 for parochial mission work, an undertaking encouraged by Pope Pius VII, who on 25 Jan. 1822 had previously praised the project.
After overcoming not a few difficulties arising from disagreements with his bishop, Mgr Devie, who wished to make the Society of Mary a diocesan congregation, definitive approval was obtained through Gregory XVI’s brief *Omnium gentium* of 21 Apr. 1836. From its beginnings, the Congregation devoted itself to the Christian education of youth in colleges, to preaching in the countryside, and to missions in Western Oceania, comprising more than 300 islands. Under the direction of the founder (1836–1854) and his successors, the Congregation expanded its works into nearly all civilized nations, assuming the direction of seminaries, founding colleges, preaching residences, study centers, opening chapels and parishes, and caring for leper hospitals in the missions. At present (1952) it numbers 1,738 professed religious, including one archbishop and nine bishops, with 307 houses and mission stations. The missions, begun in the Wallis and Futuna Islands and in New Zealand, are organized into eight apostolic vicariates: Tonga, Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Southern Solomons, the Northern Solomons, and Fiji. The Generalate is at Rome.