Piarists

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The Clerics Regulars Poors of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools or short Piarists is the name of a Catholic educational order, also known as the Scolopi, Escolapios or Poor Clerics of the Mother of God (in both cases 'Clerics' can also become 'Clerks', same etymology).

1 History
2 Education
3 Famous piarists
4 Sources and references
5 External links

[edit] History

The order was founded by Joseph Calasanz (also known as Calasanza; religious name Josephus a Matre Dei) at Rome in 1597 .

Calasanz, a native of Calasanz castle in the Spanish province of Huesca in Aragon, was born on September 11, 1556, studied at Lerida and Alcalá, and after his ordination to the priesthood removed to Rome (1592) were he organized, in 1607, a brotherhood. As a member of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine he went about the country instructing the people, and his experience convinced him of the necessity of providing the children of the poor with religious instruction at an early age. Antonio Brendoni, pastor of Santa Dorotea in Trastevere, placed two rooms at his disposal and assisted him in the work, in which they were afterwards joined by two other priests. It was not long before the reputation of the school increased the attendance to such an extent that Calasanctius removed it to a building within the city, where he took up his residence with his companions. When two years later the school was again removed, this time to the Vestri Palace in the vicinity of Sant' Andrea della Valle, community life was inaugurated among the associates, and pope Clement VIII showed his approval of the work by ordering the payment of a yearly allowance of 200 scudi for rent of the house. Criticism ensued which led to an inspection of the schools by Cardinals Antoniani and Baronius, which resulted satisfactorily, the approval of pope Paul V was even more pronounced than that of his predecessor. In To the three usual vows they added a fourth, that of devotion to the gratuitous instruction of youth.

In 1612 the growth of the schools necessitated the purchase of the Torres Palace, and on 25 March, 1617 it became an independent Congregation, numbering at that time fifteen priests, under Calasanz (who changed his name to Joseph of the Mother of God, thus inaugurating the practice of dropping the family name on entering the religious life), as their head; they received the religious habit. The most noted of his early companions were Gaspare Dragonette, who joined the saint at the age of 95 and died a saintly death in 1628 at the age of 120; Bernardino Pannicola, later Bishop of Ravello; Juan Garcia, afterwards general of the order; the learned Gellio Ghellini; Tomasso Vittoria; Viviandi de Colle; Melchiore Albacchi.

The congregation was made a religious order 18 November 1621 by a Brief of Gregory XV, under the name of Congregatio Clericorum regularium pauperum Matris Dei scholarum piarum. The term "Pauline" was dropped by this pope, while it was part of the original name due to Paul VI. The Constitutions were approved 31 January 1622 by pope Gregory XV, and had all the privileges of the mendicant orders conferred upon it, Calasanz being recognized as general superior, his four assistants being Pietro Casani, Viviano Vivani, Francesco Castelli and Paolo Ottonelli. On 7 May of the same year the novitiate of St. Onofrio was opened.

In 1643, the jealousy of the Jesuits led to his removal from office; owing to the same cause the Order was deprived of its privileges by pope Innocent X in 1646. In 1656 Alexander VII rescinded the privilege of solemn vows granted by Gregory XV and added to the simple vows an oath of perseverance in the congregation.

The privileges of the Congregation were successively restored in 1660, 1669 and 1698. Pope Clement IX in 1669, who restored the Piarists to the condition of regulars. But petitions from members who hesitated to bind themselves by solemn vows led Clement X in 1670 to issue a Brief which empowered the general of the Piarists to dispense from solemn vows laymen or clerics in minor orders, while ordained clerics in possession of a sufficient patrimony or a benefice were restored to the jurisdiction of their bishops.

Calasanz, who died on August 25, 1648, was beatified in 1748, and canonized in 1767.

The Piarists are exempt from episcopal jurisdiction and subject only to their general provost, who is elected every six years by the general chapter and with a general procurator with four assistants resides at Rome. In virtue of a Brief of Alexander VIII (1690) they ceased to be discalced. The members are divided into professed, novices and lay brethren.

Their habit is very similar to that of the Jesuits, closed in front with three leathern buttons, and they wear a short mantle; their motto is Ad majus pietatis incrementum!

The order spread rapidly even during the founder's lifetime and in the early 20th century, though not numerous, had nine provinces (Italy, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Chile, and Central America), 121 houses with 2100 members and about 40,000 pupils. The Piarists are found chiefly in Italy, Spain, Poland, the West Indies, Germany and especially in Austria and Hungary.

[edit] Education

The Piarists have won distinction in the sphere of education. Their first care is to provide free education for poor children, but they also receive pupils from the middle classes and the nobility, and since 1700 they have taught besides the elementary branches the liberal arts and sciences. At the time of their foundation in Poland and Lithuania, Clement XII formally commissioned them to teach the higher studies. Before the course of study was regulated by the state, a Piarist establishment contained nine classes: reading, writing, elementary mathematics, schola parva or Rudimentorum, schola Principiorum, Grammatica, Syntaxis, Humanitas or Poesis and Rhetorica. The plan of studies is uniform, as are also the textbooks, which to a great extent are compiled by members of the order. Like the Jesuits they devote special attention to the acting of Latin dramas by the students.

A member of the order, Francis Hermann Czech (d. 1847), was very successful in his work of teaching the deaf and dumb. One of the most famous Piarist, priest Stanislaw Konarski, was the reformator of the Polish education system in the 18th century. To honor his faithful duty, the Polish king Stanislaw August Poniatowski created the Sapere Auso medal.

[edit] Famous piarists

Among the writers and learned men of the order are the general Pietro Francesco of the Immaculate Conception, author of the "Polygraphia sacra seu Eleucidarium biblicum histor.-myst". (Augsburg, 1724); Philip of St. James, who edited the chief Sentences of the "Maxima Sanctorum Patrum Bibliotheca" (Lyons, 1719); Arn. Zeglicki, whose "Bibliotheca gnomico histor.-symbolic.-politica" was published at Warsaw in 1742; Alexis a S. Andrea Alexi (d. 1761), moral theologian; Antonius a Santo Justo, author of "Schola pia Aristotelico-Thomistica" (Saragossa, 1745); Stanisław Konarski (d. 1773), famous Polish pedagogue, reformer of education; Gottfrid a S. Elisabetha Uhlich (d. 1794), professor of heraldry and numismatics; Augustine Odobrina, who was actively associated with Gottfried Leibniz; Adrian Rauch, historian; Josef Fengler (d. 1802), Bishop of Raab (now Győr); Remigius Döttler, professor of physics at the University of Vienna; Franz Lang, rector of the same university; the general Giovanni Inghirami (d. 1851), astronomer; Johann N. Ehrlich (d. 1864), professor of theology at the University of Prague; A. Leonetti, author of a biography of Alexander VI (Bologna, 1880); Filippo Cecchi; Karl Feyerfeil, mathematician; and Franz Kraus, philologian.

Many members of the order led lives of sanctity. In his Life of St. Joseph Calasanctius, Tosetti gives a list of 54 who between 1615 and 1756 died edifying deaths, among them Petrus Casani (d. 1647), the first novice master of the order; the fourth superior general, Cosimo Chiara (d. 1688); Petrus Andreas Taccioni (d. 1672); the lay-brother Philip Bosio (d. 1662); Antonio Muscia (d. 1665); and Eusebius Amoretti (d. 1685).

[edit] Sources and references

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. [1]

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
P. Helyot, Histoire des ordres religieuses (1715), iv. 281
J. A. Seyffert, Ordensregeln der Piaristen (Halle, 1783)
J. Schaller, Gedanken über die Ordensfassung der Piaristen (Prague, 1805)
A. Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1897) ii. 271
articles by O. Zockler in Herzog-Hauck's Real-encyklopadie für protestantische Theologie (1904), vol. xv.
C. Kniel in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchen-lexikon (1895), vol. ix.