The Marists and French Penal Laws

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 29

The Marists and French Penal Laws

The Protestant correspondent of an American Protestant paper, • The Living Chinch,' writing from France, speaks as follows of one of the leligious Ordeis against which the Combes' Goxernment is carrying on its infamous campaign —

' 'I he general snbicct of the crusade against the Congregations brings up mitut.illv tie n.ents and ser\ ices ot the difTerent bodies attacked \\Mh the work of most oJ them people are i^eneral'v acquainted broadly. There are, howc\er, some sietml conyfegat ions of religious —priest and freres banded together— who fall under the present ban, and with whose exploits many are less conversant. It may interest your readers to learn a lew facts ot a body of such men, who, from their fulcrum in France, ha\ c made the oth< r side of the world especially their field of labor ; whose names are indeed much better known in Australia, and in the .Islands ot Oceania than they are in France itself Such is the Congregation ot the " Marists " The Mansts are a modern body. J heir work is less often quoted in papers and periodicals than that of others with greater antiquity and more sounding names on the roll. Hut they have, none the less, done devoted and true missionary "work in the sense ol the very first evangelisers

' In 1790, a young priest from the Beaujolais named Colin, who from a child had the fixed idea' to found a new institution for o\anpolising, set to work to catry out his determination. His fiist dim-tple was his brother ITc strove, worked, piaved, and com meed others i ! l io?<! Society grow. Tt took the name of " Marie >; )" 118"-«1 18 "-« himnc I )Ut himself into communic.ition with the Holy See, Colin received from Pope Pius VII. a laudatory and pe> missive "brief." After this Peic Colin held the post of director of the seminary at Delloy, where instruction became one of his necessaiy duties

ists'o^The^pedal w^r l^^^ lo^ l^^^ the Marof the Society of the f rooalL ? ee asked ' in 1836 ' had not a man or mKtt a t Lyons whether they Oceania, a district thaffL r ° OUld . - Work in Western ially desired to be cultivated Con & re & atlon at Home specposal C made a t n o d t^'^ °*> and the proerous fervor This wa<T + £>' k • as acee Pted with genhas been activeTy^orte^ev^Tinc^ ° f a miSBi ° n that rn^^^ ne 8«8 «° oo n rl S«^ 88 a o hou^old word in that their work lav the inhnhWnn+o ?f? f the island s where the prospect was not allure p* + k "°^ n carin 'bals, so thii^'piioiuia? task 1 """ °' """"•" tradition.