The Congregation of the Daughters of Saint Francis de Sales was founded in Lugo (RA) on 23 August 1872 through the work of Canon Carlo Cavina, then Provost of the Collegiate Church of Saints Francis and Hilary. Mother M. Teresa Fantoni and Mother M. Luigia Montanari worked alongside him.
In 1871, the year in which religious education was abolished in schools, Father Carlo felt a strong need to counter the anticlerical offensive that was spreading throughout the town.
Fascinated by the work that Father Giovanni Bosco’s Salesian religious carried out for boys, he decided to establish something similar for girls.
In 1872, Father Carlo invited and welcomed into his “home” two young women, Rosa Nenci and Amalia Manzoni, who aspired to religious life, without, however, having them enter the community of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Antida Thouret (with whom he collaborated).
However, following some misunderstandings, the mother general of the Institute of Charity, Sister Carolina Chambrò, fearing that her religious sisters would abandon the rule to start a new congregation, excluded both Sister Ippolita, the future Mother Teresa, and Sister Maria Elisabetta from the educational work she managed together with Father Carlo.
In light of what happened, Father Carlo, assisted by Mother Teresa Fantoni, decided to found, in that same year, 1872, a new congregation: the Daughters of Saint Francis de Sales.
The founder wanted his Religious Congregation to be enrolled with a “collective diploma” in the Pious Union of the Apostleship of Prayer, because for Father Carlo the practice of this apostolate was fundamental to the success of his religious sisters’ educational mission.
Before his death in 1880, Father Carlo Cavina also succeeded in carrying out his final project. In fact, in 1873, at the collegiate church, he managed to open the daytime and evening “Schools of the Most Holy Trinity ” for young men.
The Congregation of the Daughters of Saint Francis de Sales is a Religious Institute of Pontifical Right, approved by Decree of the Sacred Congregation for Religious on 31 January 1931.
Charism
The Charism of the Congregation is:
the apostolate of prayer; the Christian education of young people; charitable action in the service of the poor, the sick and the elderly.
In its early years, the Congregation devoted itself mainly to the education and assistance of young women, with daytime and evening schools for working women. Today, the charism is fulfilled in educational institutions of various types and levels and in an extensive pastoral service. Charitable action is expressed in the fields of hospital care and social assistance.
Attentive to the signs of the times, the Congregation strives to respond to the new forms of poverty typical of our society: single mothers, young people in difficulty, children and adolescents who are victims of difficult situations or have been abandoned. All this, of course, while continuing and strengthening its traditional pastoral, educational and charitable works, such as schools, catechesis, assistance to children and young people in various parish groups, care homes, hospitals and retirement homes.
Since 1970, the Congregation has been present in Italy, South Africa, India, Brazil, the Philippines, England, Germany, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Indonesia, with educational, care and pastoral works.
The sisters of the Congregation currently number approximately 340. The Generalate is in Rome.
Contact Us
Via Portuense, 514 – 00149 Rome Italy
Tel: +39 06-65745353, Fax: +39 06-55045207
c.generaliziasales@virgilio.it
