Pious Union of Saint Paul the Apostle

PIOUS UNION OF SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE. - A meritorious association founded in Rome in 1790 and canonically erected in 1797 in the archhospital of St. Mary of Consolation.

Its purpose was to gather into a well-ordered body priests, clerics and even laymen desirous of devoting themselves to spiritual and corporal works of charity, such as assistance to the sick lying in hospitals or in private homes, religious instruction for the most abandoned class of the city, the distribution of good books, etc. At the head of the P. U. stood a priest, called the Primary Regulator, assisted in the direction of the individual charitable works by other Secondary Regulators, two for each work. The priests and clerics gathered every 15 days for the casus of morals and a brief instruction (a custom still in force in Rome through the initiative of the vicariate); the laymen gathered, on the occasion of feast days, in the church of St. Paul alla Regola, where they could approach the Holy Sacraments and hear an instruction suited to their mission. The servant of God Fr. B. Lanteri (v.) introduced it in Turin on 22 Feb. 1815, obtaining its aggregation to the primary one of Rome.

S. P. A. and the advantages it has rendered to society and to the sacred sciences, ibid. 1852: [A. P. Frutaz], Positio super introduzione Causa et super virtutibus Pii Brunanti Lanteri (S. R. Congregatio, sectio historica, 63), Vatican City 1945, pp. 29-30, 195-97.