UNIONE DI SAN PAOLO APOSTOLO, PIA. – A meritorious association founded in Rome in 1790 and canonically erected in 1797 in the archhospital of S. Maria della Consolazione.
Its purpose was to gather into a well-ordered body priests, clerics, and also laymen desirous of devoting themselves to spiritual and corporal charitable works, such as assisting sick persons staying in hospitals or in private homes, providing religious instruction to the city’s most neglected class, distributing good books, etc. At the head of the P. U. was a priest, called the Primary Regulator, assisted in directing the individual charitable works by other Secondary Regulators, two for each work. The priests and clerics met every fifteen days for a conference on moral theology and a brief instruction (a practice still in force in Rome through the initiative of the vicariate); the laymen met on feast days in the church of S. Paolo alla Regola, where they could receive the SS. Sacraments and hear an instruction suited to their mission. The servant of God P. B. Lanteri (v.) introduced it in Turin on 22 February 1815, obtaining its affiliation with the primary association of Rome.
S. P. A. e dei vantaggi da essa renduti alla società e alle scienze sacre, there 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.