APOSTOLIC UNION. - Priestly association, founded under the title “U. A. of the diocesan priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” in France in 1862 by the honorary canon of Orléans, mons. Lebeurier.
Some priests from the Veneto, who had already established something similar for Italy, joined the French Association, and on 18 Nov. 1880, at Monte Berico in Vicenza, the first Italian circle arose through the work of d. Luigi Marini of Bassano Veneto. The U. A. is spread through 24 nations and has 26,000 enrolled members. It was blessed and enriched with numerous briefs by the popes. It is consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its patrons are St. Giovanni Vianney, curé of Ars, and St. Giuseppe Cafasso. Blessed Pio X belonged to it and always supported and recommended II.
The purposes of the Association are: 1) to enable secular priests to benefit from certain advantages of religious life, protecting them against the dangers of solitude and fostering mutual charity and fraternal friendship; 2) to procure the sanctification of its members through fidelity to the practices of priestly piety: this fidelity is facilitated by an individual and fraternal review carried out by means of the regularity bulletin, which each member records daily and then sends to the director of the Association or to his own spiritual director; 3) to direct all members toward an intense devotion and close union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; 4) to grant participation, in life and in death, in the prayers of their fellow priests and in the fruit of the Most Holy Masses celebrated for the members of the Association.
The national headquarters for the Italian clergy is currently in Trento (Via dei Giardini, no. 36).