Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/354

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

SACRED


308


SACRED


Father Enfantin exercised over the crowds was unexpectedly revealed; at the second, at Amiens, more than six hundred marriages were rehabili- tated.

Meanwhile Paccanari's administration, his taste for display, his festivals, and the premature thrusting of his subjects into pubUcity displeased the Fathers of the Faith. Besides, Father Kozaven, the provin- cial of England, who had learned in 1S02 certain un.savoury details of the general's private hfe, pur- sued his ' inquiries, and, having attained certainty, visited Rome in 1803 to communicate the melan- choly facts to Pius VII. During his absence most of his brethren in London UTOte to Father Griiber, the Vicar-General of the Society of Jesus in Russia, to obtain admission individually. Father Rozaven on his return to England imitated their example, and in March, 1804, he set out for Russia. Only Father Charles de Broghe remained in London, as a secular priest; he broke with his former friends, allied himself closely with the anti-concordataire bishop?, and persisted in his protestations against the act of Pius VII as late as 1842. Father Varin, apprised of the course of events by Father Rozaven, referred the matter to the cardinal-legate in France, and on 21 June, 1804, broke with Paccanari. His society, having become independent, remained in France on the advice of the legate and of Pius VII himself. It flourished in that country' until 1807; missions were given at Grenoble, Poitiers, Niort, Bordeaux, and elsewhere; seminaries were opened at Roulers (Gand), Marvejols (Mende), Bazas (Bordeaux), and a college at Argentiere (Lyons). This progress alarmed Fouche; Napoleon issued an order for the suppression of the congregation, which wa-s executed in Nov., 1807; the connivance of local authorities enabled it to continue the work of the seminaries, but its missions were stopped. Many of the Fathers entered the parochial minis- try.

In August, 1806, Father Sineo della Torre and the Fathers in Switzerland in their turn abandoned Pac- canari. In 1810 they were received as a body into the Societj' of Jesus, though only in joro interno, the official aggregation not taking place until 1814. Also about the year 1806 some of the Fathers of Spo- leto, Padua, Lombardy, and Amsterdam seceded. The Society of Jesus having been restored at Naples by Pius VII (31 July, 1804), many Fathers of the Collegio Mariano went there and were admitted as novices.

In July, 1807, Paccanari received positive commands from the pope to retire to Spoleto. A first canonical process was begun during the winter. Relegated to the convent of the Franciscans at Assisi, the general made a confession of his whole hfe and appeared penitent. At the end of five months he was trans- ferred to the prisons of the Holy Office. A new trial resulted, in August, 1806, in a sentence of ten years' imprisonment. The sentence paid a tribute to the innocence and virtue of the other Fathers of the Faith; nevertheless it was the annihilation of their soceity. In 1809, when the French army opened the pontif- ical pri.sons, Paccanari at first refused to go out, but eventually left and disappeared. It is uncertain whether he withdr(;w to Switzerland under an as- sumed name, as sfjme have asserted, or whether, under homv regrettable circumstances, he was stabbed by a domejitic servant and his body thrown into the Tiber, as another traxlition has it. No one knows what his end was.

The Archduchess Maria Anna, who, in spite of the commands of her brother the Emperor Leopold, had at first refusfxJ to abandon Paccanari and his work, was obliged to submit, overcome by the miserable life which her brother allowed her to live and the shame of her condemnation. She retired to Styria


to die a holy death. She obtained permission for the last remnants of the Paccanarists to live, though without the religious habit, in the house of St. Syl- vester. The Collegio Mariano was sold, and in 1814 most of the Paccanarists entered the Society of Jesus.

As for the French Fathers, the fall of Napoleon enabled them to meet in Paris and deliberate as to what course they should take. Father de Clor- iviere, one of the old Jesuits, and Monsignori di Gre- gorio and della Genga (the latter afterwards Leo XII), the pope's representatives, advised them to remain in France. Father Varin, however, had al- ready set out for Russia to ask the general to appoint a commissary to re-establish the Society of Jesus in France, when the commission was given to Father Cloriviere himself. Father Varin was received by him into the Society on 19 July, 1814. Nearly all the former Fathers of the Faith followed him; the rest remaining among the secular clergy.

GuiD^E, Vie du p. Joseph Varin (2nd ed., Paris, 1860); Idem, Notices hist, sur quelgues membres de la Soc. des Peres du Sacri- Coeur et de la C. de J. (Paris, 1860) ; Speil, Leonor v. Tournely u. die Gesellschaft des hi. Herzens Jesu (Breslau, 1874).

Marc Dubruel.

Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Congrega- tion OF THE, AND OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION OP

THE Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, better known as the Congregation of Picpus, was founded by Father Coudrin, b. at Coursay-les-Bois, in Poiton on 1 March, 1768. He was only deacon when the perse- cution, directed against the clergy, dispersed the stu- dents of the seminary of Poitiers, where he was being trained. Having learned that Mgr de Bonald, Bishop of Clermont, was in Paris and would confer Holy Orders upon him, he set out for that city, and on 4 March, 1792, was ordained priest in the Irish Sem- inary. The ordination took place in the library, be- cause the revolutionaries had invaded the chapel in which they were actually holding their meetings. After ordination he returned to Coursay, but the violence of the persecution soon compelled him to hide elsewhere. During October of the same year, dis- guised, he laboured in the Dioceses of Poitiers and Tours.

Father Coudrin gathered around him a few com- panions, to whom he communicated his views to promote devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and of Mary, and who were also willing to assist him in his great work. On Christmas night, 1800, he sol- emnly made his religious vows, tlevoting himself entirely to the love of the Sacred Hearts. During the year 180.5 Father Coudrin bought some dilapidated houses in the Rue Picpus in Paris, and there estab- lished himself with a few of his religious. A college for the training of youths and a seminary were soon started. "The Good Father", as his religious used to call him, governed his congregation with tact and prudence, and in spite of many difficul- ties, his work prospered. Several new monasteries and colleges were founded and opened in various towns.

In 182.5 the evangelization of the Sandwich Islands in the I'acific Occiui was entrusted by the Holy Sec to the (>)iigr('gati()n of the Sacred Hearts, and tin' follow- ing year the first band of missionaries of the Sacred Hearts left France to carry tlic Iaitli to the inhabi- tants. In 1833 the Archipelagos of Orient.al Occanica were likewise confided to the same Congregation and immediately missionaries were sent to the (Jambier Islands; some of these fathers established hou.ses of the congregation in Peru and Chile, South America. Not long afterwards other evangelical labourers were sent to the Marquesa Islands at the death of the founder in 1837. The perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was made day and night in nineteen