Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/324

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HERMITS
282
HERMITS

Mexico were suppressed in 1860; in Russia, in 1864; in the Kingdom of Hanover, in 1875. The Philippine Islands, however, suffered the heaviest losses, during the disturbances of 1896. Hence the Augustinian Order of to-day has only a tenth of the monasteries which it possessed at the time of its greatest prosperity

Without counting the Discalced Augustinians, the order comprises 19 provinces, 2 commissariates, 2 congregations, and 60 large monasteries (with 6 or more fathers), in all, including residences and mission stations, 275 foundations, with 2050 members (priests, clerical novices, and lay brothers). These provinces, according to the "Catalogus Fratrum O. Erem. S. Augustini" (Rome, 1908) are: —

1. Provincia Roman (Rome), with 13 convents.

2. Provincia Picena (north-eastern Italy), with 16 convents.


Hermit of St. Augustine in Ordinary Habit


3. Provincia Castellce (Spain), with 5 colleges and 2 residences (8. German and Cabo Rojo) in Porto Rico.

4. Provincia Hollandica, with 6 convents.

5. Provincia Belgica, with 3 convents.

6. Provincia Umbriae, with 9 convents.

7. Provincia Bavarico - Germanica et Polonica, with 7 convents in Bavaria, 1 in Prussia, and 1 in Austrian Galicia.

8. Provincia Bohemiae, with 7 convents in Bohemia.

9. Commissariatus Neapolitanus, with 2 convents.

10. Commissariatus Siculus, with 8 convents in Sicily.

11. Pronncia Etruriae, with 5 convents.

12. Provincia Hiberniae, with 12 con ents in Ireland (Dublin, Galway, Cork, Limerick, Drogheda, Callan, Dungarvan, New Ross, Fethard, Ballyhaunis, Clonmines, and Orlagh), 3 in England (Hoxton, West Kensington, and Hythe), 3 in Australia (Echuca, Rochester, and Kyabram), and 1 in Italy (St. Patrick's, Rome).

13. Provincia Ligurice, with 5 convents.

14. Provincia Michoacanensis (Mexico), with 10 convents, 16 vicariates or parishes, and 1 chaplaincy.

15. Provincia SS. Nominin Jesu Insularum Philipinarum. This comprises 2 residences at Madrid ; the Real Colegio at Valladolid ; 4 other residences and 7 convents in other parts of Spain; a procurator's house {domus procurationis) at Rome; 3 convents and 10 parish residences in the Philippines; a procurator's house and 6 mission stations in China; one college and five houses in the Republic of Colombia; 1 convent, 3 colleges, and 3 mission stations in Peru; a procurator's house and 16 other houses (including 1 diocesan semi- nary) in Brazil ; 5 colleges, 1 school, and 4 other houses in Argentina.

16. Provincia S. Michadis Quitensis (Ecuador), with 3 convents.

17. Provincia Mexicana SS. Nominis Jesu (Mexico), with 6 convents and 7 vicariates.

18. Provincia Chilensis (Chile), with 6 convents and 1 house. 19. Provincia Melitenis (Malta), with 3 convents.

20. Provincia S. Thoince a Villanova in Statibus Faderatis Americas Septentrionalis (United States of America) comprises, besides the college of Villanova, in Pennsylvania, and that of St. Augustine, at Havana, Cuba, 9 convents and 11 houses.

21. Provincia M atritensis SS. Cordis Jesu (Spain), with 2 chapels in Madrid, a convent and 2 colleges in the Escorial, 1 college each at Palma (Majorca), (iuer- nica, and Ronda, and a school at Portugalete.

22 . Congregalio S. Joannis ad Carbonariam (Naples) , with 4 convents.

23. Congregalio S. Marice deNemore Siciliw (Sicily), with 2 convents.

The convents of St. Thomas, at Alt Briinn, Moravia, and of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Philadel|)hia, U. S. A., are immediately subject to the general of the Augustinian Order.

The chief house of the order is the International College of St. Monica at Rome, Via S. TJffizio No. 1. It is also the residence of the general of the order (prior generalin) and of the curia gi-neridis. Another monastery of the .-Vugustinian Hermits in Rome is that of S. Augustinus de Urbe, established in 14S3, near the church of St. Augustine, in which the remains of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, wcii; deposited when they were brought from Ostia in the year 1430. This, formerly the chief monastery of the order, is now occupied by the Italian Ministry of Marine, and the Augustinian Fathers who serve the church retain only a small portion of their former properly. Another Augustinian convent in Rome is S. Maria de Populo de Urbe.

In 1331 Pope John XXII had appointed the Augus- tinian Hermits guardians of the tomb of St. .\ugustinc in the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia. They were driven thence in 1700, and fled to Milan. Their monastery being destroyed in 1799, and the church desecrated, the remains of St. Augustine were taken back to Pavia and placed in its cathedral. In recent times the church of S. Pietro was restored, and on 7 October, 1900, the body of the saint was removed from the cathedral and replaced in San Pietro — an event commemorated in a poem by Pope Leo XIII. The .\ugustinians are again in possession of their old church of S. Pietro.

Reform Move.ments. — In the fourteenth century, owing to various causes, such as the mitigation of the rule, either by permission of the pope, or through a lessening of fervour, but chiefly in consequence of the Plague and th.r Great Western Schism, dis- cipline became relaxf ' in the Augustinian monas- teries; hence reformers appeared who were anxious to restore it. These reformers were them.selves -Au- gustinians and instituted several reformed congre- gations, each having its own vicar-general {vicariu.'i- generalis), but all under the control of the general of the order. The most important of these congreaa- tions of the " Regular Oliservants" were those of llli- ceto, in the district of Siena, established in 1385, having 12, and subsequently 8, convents; of St. John ad Car- bonariam (founded c. i:i90), having 14 convents, of which 4 still exist; of Perugia (1491), having 11; the Lombardic Congregation (1430), .56; the Congregation of the Spanish Observance (1430), which since 1.505 has comprised all the Castilian monasteries; of Monte Ortono near Padua (1436), having 6 convents; of the Blessed Virgin at Genoa, also called Our Lady of Con- solation (c. 1470), 25; of Apulia (c. 1490)," 11; the German, or Saxon. Congregation (1493) (see next para- graph); the Congregation of Zampani in Calabria (1507), 40; the Dalmatian Congregation (1510), 6; the Congregation of theColorites, or of Monte Colorito, Calabria (KiOO), 11; of Centorbio in Sicily (1.590), 18 (at present 2, which form the Congregation of S. Maria de Nemore Siciha>) ; of the " Little Augustinians " of Bourges, France (c. 1593), 20; of the Spanish, Italian,