JOSEPHITES

(SSJ, Official Catholic Directory #0700); a congregation of priests and brothers, officially designated St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart (SSJ), but popularly known as Josephite Fathers or Josephite Missionaries.

Origin. The Josephite society, numbering more than 250 priests and brothers in 1963, was founded in 1866 at Mill Hill, London, England, by Herbert vaughan, later cardinal archbishop of Westminster. Vaughan's plan to found a society of missionary priests was encouraged by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, who recalled that St. Vincent Pallotti had declared that England would not be rewon to the Catholic Church until she resumed her pre-Reformation practice of sending priests to the foreign missions.

In 1871, when Vaughan asked Pius IX for a mission field for his new society, the pope suggested that the first Josephites be sent to the U.S. to work among the more than four million recently emancipated African Americans. The suggestion was an answer to the appeal of the American hierarchy who, during the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866, begged for priests who would devote themselves to the service of black Americans. In December 1871 four priests from Mill Hill arrived in Baltimore, Md., to begin work.

Within the next two decades, more missionaries came from Mill Hill to the U.S., but experience showed that the African-American missions could be served better by an American community. Thus, in 1893, by mutual consent of Cardinal Vaughan and Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, an American community was established under the direction of Gibbons. The original community, St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions of Mill Hill, or mill hill missionaries, continued to flourish both in England and on the Continent and in many mission areas of the world. The American community, under the original four Josephites, formed the new Society of St. Joseph, which received the decree of praise in 1932, officially establishing it as a pontifical society.

Development. The society was founded to work exclusively within the African-American community. The original members dedicated themselves by vow to this particular vocation. In the years following 1871, missions were established in Washington, D.C.; Richmond and Norfolk, VA.; Charleston, SC; and Louisville, KY. In the 20th century, the work spread, with the greatest concentration of Josephites in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The generalate is in Baltimore, MD.

Bibliography: The Colored Harvest (Baltimore 1888–1960) superseded by the Josephite Harvest (Baltimore 1960– ). j. t. gillard, The Catholic Church and the American Negro (Baltimore 1930); Colored Catholics in the U.S. (Baltimore 1941). josephite fathers, Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, 1893–1943 (Baltimore 1943). f. m. devres, Remembered in Blessing: The Courtfield Story (London 1955).

[m. j. o'rourke/eds.]