AFRICAN MISSIONS, SOCIETY OF

The Society of African Missions (SMA, Official Catholic Directory #0110), of pontifical right, was founded in Lyons, France, on Dec. 8, 1856, by Bp. Melchior de marion-brÉsillac for missionary work in Africa. It is a clerical society of apostolic life.

In 1858, as its first mission, the society was given the vicariate apostolic of sierra leone, where, the following year, Brésillac and most of his missionaries perished during a fever epidemic. Leadership then passed to Father Augustin Planque, whom Pius IX confirmed as the first superior general of the society. In 1861 a group of missionaries left for the newly erected vicariate of Dahomey, where successful foundations were made at Ouidah, Porto-Novo, and Lagos. The missionaries established stations along the West Coast of Africa, from Liberia to the Niger River. In 1875 Planque founded the Congregation of Our Lady of the Apostles to provide sisters to assist in establishing schools, orphanages, dispensaries, model farms, and workshops.

The society spread throughout Europe and the U. S.; in 1912 the Irish province was established; in 1923 the Dutch province; in 1927 Eastern France (Alsace); in 1941 the American province. The motherhouse was transferred to Rome in 1937. The U. S. provincialate is in Tenafly, NJ.

The society arrived in the U. S. in 1904, answering a call from Bp. Benjamin J. Keiley of Savannah, Ga., who had appealed to the society for priests to work among the African-Americans of his diocese. From the Savannah mission, begun in 1904 and directed by Rev. Ignatius Lissner, priests spread to various parishes throughout the U. S. In 1917, Lissner founded the franciscan handmaids of the most pure heart of mary, a congregation for black American sisters. In 1941, when the American province was canonically erected in Tenafly, N. J., he was named its first provincial.

Bibliography: r. f. guilcher, La Société des missions africaines: Ses origines, sa nature, sa vie, ses oeuvres (Lyon 1956). j. bonfils, L'Oeuvre de Msgr. De Marion Brésillac en faveur du clergé local dans les missions de l'Inde au XIX ^e siècle (Lyon 1959). m. j. bane, Catholic Pioneers in West Africa (Dublin 1956); Heroes of the Hinterland (New York 1959). j. m. todd, African Mission (London 1962).

[e. j. biggane/eds.]