Order of Penitents - Orders of Penitents

Orders of Penitents

Umiliati

The Umiliati were established in northern Italy. Innocent III approved their way of life or "Propositum" in 1201. In 1208 he approved the "Propositum" of the Poveri Cattolici and in 1210 that of the Poveri Lombardi.

Penitents of Assisi

Established as a lay order by St. Francis of Assisi, their full name was viri poenitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi ("penitents from the town of Assisi") Eventually they became the Secular Franciscan Order.

Penitents or Hermits of St. John the Baptist

A community near Pamplona in the Kingdom of Navarre, leading a life of mortification and silence, and assembling only for the chanting of the Divine Office. They received the approbation of Gregory XIII (c. 1515), who appointed a provincial for them.

A community founded in France about 1630 by Michel de Sabine for the reform of abuses among the hermits. Only those of the most edifying lives were chosen as members, and rules were drawn up which were approved for their dioceses by the Bishops of Metz and LePuy en Velay.

Ordo paenitentiae ss. Martyrum or Ordo Mariae de Metro de paenitentia ss. Martyrum

There are various opinions as to the period of foundation, some dating it back to the time of Pope Cletus, but it is certain that the order was flourishing in Poland and Lithuania in the second half of the thirteenth century, the most important monastery being that of St. Mark at Cracow, where the religious lived under the Rule of St. Augustine.

Penitents of Our Lady of Refuge

Also called Nuns or Hospitallers of Our Lady of Nancy, founded at Nancy in 1631 by Ven. Marie-Elizabeth de la Croix de Jésus, daughter of Jean-Leonard de Fanfain of Remiremont. Left a widow at the early age of twenty-four, she opened a refuge for fallen women, assisted by her three young daughters. The new congregation was formally approved by the Holy See in 1634 under the title of Our Lady of Refuge and the patronage of St. Ignatius Loyola, and under constitutions drawn largely from those of the Society of Jesus and in accordance with the Rule of St. Augustine.

Sisters of the Conservatorio di S. Croce della Penitenza or del buon Pastore

Also known as Scalette, founded at Rome in 1615 by the Carmelite Domenico di Gesu e Maria, who, with the assistance of Baltassare Paluzzi, gathered into a small house (conservatorio) a number of women who were in danger of falling into prostitution. Those desiring to become religious were placed under the Rule of St. Augustine

Ordo religiosus de penitentia

The members of which were called Scalzette or Nazareni, founded in 1752 at Salamanca, by Juan Varella y Losada (b. 1724; d. at Ferrara, 24 May 1769), who had resigned a military career for a life of voluntary humiliation in a house of the Observants at Salamanca. Being urged to found a religious order, he assembled eight companions in community (8 March 1752) under a rule which he had drawn up the previous year, and for which he obtained the authorization of Benedict XIV. Like the Franciscans, the members take a vow to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and, like all mendicant orders, they derive their means of subsistence entirely from contributions and are forbidden the possession of landed property.

Order of Penitents established by Bernard of Marseille

The Order of Penitents was a religious order established by Bernard of Marseille about 1272 for the reception into the Roman Catholic Church of reformed courtesans. Noah Webster's Dictionary, 1828, under "penitent" affirmed "Order of penitents, a religious order established by one Bernard of Marseilles, about the year 1272, for the reception of reformed courtezans. The congregation of penitents at Paris, was founded with a similar view." . The entry was repeated in Nuttall's Encyclopedia 1907. The confraternities of penitents of Marseille were traced to the end of the 15th century by A. E. Barnes.

Compare the Magdalen Asylums.