The Piarists (), officially named the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (), abbreviated SchP, is a religious order of clerics regular of the Catholic Church founded in 1617 by Spanish priest Joseph Calasanz. It is the oldest religious order dedicated to education, and the main occupation of the Piarist fathers is teaching children and youth, the primary goal being to provide free education for poor children. The Piarist practice was to become a model for numerous later Catholic societies devoted to teaching, while some state-supported public school systems in Europe also followed their example. The Piarists have had a considerable success in the education of physically or mentally disabled persons. Notable individuals who have taught at Piarist schools include Pope Pius IX, Goya, Schubert, Gregor Mendel, Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Victor Hugo.
History Joseph Calasanz Joseph Calasanz, a native of Peralta de la Sal in the Spanish province of Huesca in Aragon, was born on 11 September 1557. The youngest of eight children, he studied at Lleida and Alcalá, and after his ordination to the priesthood on 17 December 1583 by the Bishop of Urgel he moved to Rome (1592) where he organised, in 1607, a brotherhood. In November 1597, he opened the first free public school in Europe at Santa Dorotea. While it was considered a school of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, it was unique from the 22 other schools of the Confraternity, which just taught Catechism classes. The school opened by Calasanz also taught secular subjects. The Pious Schools expanded and were financially supported by Popes Clement VIII () and Paul V ().Biografía San José de Calasanz | Colegio Calasancio Madrid
On 6 March 1617, the Piarist Fathers became an independent congregation called the "Pauline Congregation of the Poor of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools" when Pope Paul V issued his brief "Ad ea per quae". On 25 March 1617, Calasanz and fourteen other priests became the first members of the new community when they received the religious habit. Calasanz was placed in charge of the new congregation, and he changed his name to "Joseph of the Mother of God", thus inaugurating the practice of dropping the family name on entering the religious life."History of the Order", The Piarist Fathers . The new congregation was the first religious institute dedicated to teaching. To the three usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the new congregation added a fourth vow, that of dedication to the Christian education of youth, especially of the poor.
Soon the Pious Schools began to expand outside of Rome. In June 1616, Calasanz opened a foundation of the Pious Schools at Tusculum () in the summer resort of Frascati. The school, which is still in operation, opened in August 1616, and Calasanz brought to it a painting of the Mother of God, Our Lady of Grace. He then opened schools in Narni (1618), which is located 43 miles (70 Kilometers) from Rome and is where he completed writing his Constitutions, Moricone (1619), Magliano (1620), and Norcia, Carcare, and Fonano (all 1621).
The congregation received papal approval on 18 November 1621 by a brief of Pope Gregory XV, under the name of Congregatio Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum. The term "Pauline" was omitted by this pope, although it had been part of the original name due to Pope Paul V. Gregory XV approved the constitutions on 31 January 1622, and the Piarists received all the privileges of the mendicant orders, with Calasanz recognised as general superior, his four assistants being Blessed Pietro Casani, Viviano Vivani, Francesco Castelli and Paolo Ottonelli. On 7 May of the same year the novitiate of St. Onofrio opened.
The Order began growing rapidly. It soon expanded into Liguria, and between 1621 and 1632, established schools at Carcare, Savona, two at Genoa, and a short-lived one at Carmagnola. The first Piarist province was established in 1623 in Liguria. The Roman Province would be formally established in 1626. Meanwhile, in Rome, Cardinal Tonti (1566–1622), the titular Archbishop of Nazareth, bequeathed a property to St. Joseph, which opened in 1630 with 8 students as . It soon became the flagship school of the Pious Schools in Rome. There was a failed attempt in 1625 to establish schools in Naples, but after another attempt, the province of Naples would be established in 1627. Between 1630 and 1641), several schools were opened in Tuscany. They were closed briefly following an outbreak of the plague, but they were soon reopened, and Tuscany would become a province in 1630. One of the most famous of these schools was the school at Abacus, which emphasised mathematics and science. It also offered an Algebra course for adults, and it opened a School for Nobles. The four Italian provinces were to merge into a single Italian Province in 2007.[Saint Joseph Calasanctius.Madrid: Paseo De La Direccion 5, 17 July 1974]
Outside Italy, the Pious schools expanded into Central Europe. Cardinal Dietrichstein invited the Pious Schools to come to Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. On 2 April 1631, the Laurentine School was opened in Nikolsburg (Mikulov) with eight teachers and nine students. Within a week the number of students increased to sixteen, and within a month there were over 100 students. In 1634, a novitiate was opened in Lipník nad Bečvou, and in 1640 a school was opened in Litomyšl in Bohemia. The first Piarist province established outside of Italy was the province of Bohemia and Moravia, which was established in 1634. Jerzy Ossoliński was instrumental in bringing the Pious Schools into Poland and Hungary, which soon became the countries with the two largest number of Piarist Foundations in Central Europe, with 28 foundations in Poland and 29 in Hungary. In 1642, King Ladislaus IV invited the Pious Schools to establish a foundation in Warsaw, followed by a school in Podolinec. The Piarist Province of Germany and Poland was established in 1642. Prince Stanisław Lubomirski introduced the Order into Poland, and he is considered the creator of the province of Hungary, which came about from the school in Podolinec, located on the boundary line with Poland. The first Piarist school was opened in Hungary in 1642.
The Pious Schools next expanded to the two major islands off the coast of Italy where they opened houses in Palermo and Messina in Sicily and then opened two houses at Cagliari in Sardinia. There was one attempt to open a house in the homeland of the founder during his lifetime. In 1637, the order tried to open a house in Guissona in Spain, but the first actual house to open in Spain opened forty years later, in 1677, in Barbastro. The first Spanish province was the province of Aragon, which was established in 1742. The Province of Catalonia was established in 1751, as was the province of Austria. Three more provinces would be added in Spain, one in each of the next three centuries: Castile (1753), Valencia (1833), and Vasconia (1933). Added to them was the General Delegation of Spain in 1929.[Ordo Scholarum Piarum Catalogus Generalis. Apud Curiam Generalem, Piazza de' Massimi 4, 1 September 2014]
The pedagogical ideal of Calasanz of educating every child, his schools for the poor, his support of the heliocentric sciences of Galileo Galilei, the scandals and persecutions of some of his detractors, and his life of sanctity in the service of children and youth, carried with them the opposition of many among the governing classes in society and in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In 1642, as a result of an internal crisis in the Order and outside intrigues and pressures, Calasanz was briefly held and interrogated by the Inquisition. According to Karen Liebreich, problems were exacerbated by Father Stefano Cherubini, originally headmaster of the Piarist school in Naples who sexually abused the pupils in his care. Father Stefano made no secret about at least some of his transgressions, and Calasanz came to know of them. Unfortunately for Calasanz as administrator of the order, Cherubini was the son and the brother of powerful papal lawyers; no one wanted to offend the Cherubini family. Cherubini pointed out that if allegations of his abuse of his boys became public, actions would be taken to destroy the Piarists. Calasanz, therefore, promoted Cherubini, to get him away from the scene of the crime, citing as the motive only his luxurious diet and failure to attend prayers. However, he knew what Cherubini had really been up to, and he wrote that the sole aim of the plan "... is to cover up this great shame in order that it does not come to the notice of our superiors."Karen Liebreich, Fallen Order:Intrigue, Heresy and Scandal, London, 2005.
Superiors in Rome may have suspected, but it seems that they also bowed to the same family ties that had bound Calasanz. Cherubini became visitor-general for the Piarists, able to conduct himself just as he wanted in any school he visited. The Piarists became entangled in Church politics, and partially because they were associated with Galileo, were opposed by the Jesuits. (Galileo's views also involved atomism, and was thought to have heretical ramifications regarding transubstantiation.) The support for Cherubini was broad enough that in 1643, he was made the head of the order and the elderly Calasanz was pushed aside. Upon this appointment, Calasanz publicly documented Cherubini's long pattern of child molestation, a pattern that he had known about for years. Even this did not block Cherubini's appointment, but other members of the order were indignant about it, although they may have objected to Cherubini's more overt shortcomings. With such dissension, the Holy See took the easy course of suppressing the order. In 1646, the order was deprived of its privileges by Pope Innocent X, but the order was restored ten years later by Pope Alexander VII ().
Joseph Calasanz, died on 25 August 1648. Beatified in 1748 and canonised in 1767, he was declared "Universal Patron of all the Christian popular schools in the world" by Pope Pius XII in 1948, because he had the glory of opening "the first free tuition, popular, public school in Europe"Von Pastor and had proclaimed the right to education of all children, fought for it, and was persecuted because of this.
Expansion of the order The Piarists first established a community outside the continent of Europe in 1767 when the Piarist Father Basilio Sancho was appointed as the 17th Archbishop of Manila in 1765, having been recommended for the position by King Charles III. Sancho and four other Piarists arrived in Manila in March 1767. The four other Piarists helped Sancho plan the First Provincial Synod of Manila. Sancho established a diocesan seminary in which the first native diocesan priests were trained. The Piarists worked in the seminary as well as at St. Joseph's School, which had previously been run by the Jesuits. Following Sancho's death in 1787, the Piarists returned to Spain. They wouldn't return to the Philippines until 1995, and they now have communities on the islands of Luzon, Cebu, and Mindanao.