Fathers of Mercy
Roman Catholic religious congregation for priests
The Fathers of Mercy, formally known as the Congregation of the Priests of Mercy (Latin: Congregatio Presbyterorum a Misericordia; abbreviated CPM), is a Catholic religious congregation of pontifical right of missionary priests founded by Jean-Baptiste Rauzan in early 19th-century France.
History
Foundation
The founder, Jean-Baptiste Rauzan, was born at Bordeaux on 5 December 1757. After completing his ecclesiastical studies, he taught theology and sacred eloquence and later was chosen Vicar-General of Bordeaux where he inaugurated a missionary movement. The institute was established at Lyon, France, in 1808.
After preaching in the Diocese of Troyes the institute received from the Government of Emperor Napoleon I, unsolicited subsidies to defray the expenses of their missions. However, following Napoleon's dispute with Pope Pius VII, the society, called the Missionaries of France, was suppressed.
In 1814, at the suggestion of Cardinal Fesch, a Generalate for the community was established in Paris where the priests were placed in charge of several parishes. Rauzan and his colleagues were joined by the young Vicar-General of Chambéry, de Forbin-Janson, afterwards Bishop of Nancy; Denis-Luc Frayssinous, who founded St. Stanislaus College and instructed the young missionaries in sacred eloquence; Legris Duval, Le Vasseur, Armand-Benjamin Caillau and Carboy.
They evangelized the French cities of Orléans, Poitiers, Tours, Rennes, Marseille, Toulon, Paris and other places, and established the Works of St.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fathers of Mercy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.