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Religious Order

Company of Mary

Catholic Religious Orders and Congregations
Origin from 1705

The Company of Mary, formally the Societas Mariae Monfortana and also called the Montfort Missionaries, is a Catholic missionary congregation of priests and lay brothers founded by Saint Louis de Montfort, who began conceiving the society around 1700 in search of what he described as a poor and small company of good priests for missionary work. Montfort died in 1716 before the congregation gained a formal structure, and successors including Father Adrien Vatel and Father Rene Mulot kept the mission alive; after the French Revolution disrupted the community, Father Gabriel Deshayes reorganized it and secured papal recognition from Pope Leo XII. It forms one part of the wider Montfortian Family alongside the Daughters of Wisdom and the Brothers of Saint Gabriel, and today it maintains parishes, seminaries, schools and mission stations across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particular strength in Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Classification
Kind of order
Catholic Religious Orders and Congregations 1
Apostolate
Teaching and Education 2
Apostolate
Missionary Work 1
Apostolate
Preaching 2
Who may join
Lay and Ordained Together 2
Origins
Origin Period
from 1705 1
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Catholic Apostolic Magisterial Authority 2
Practice
Liturgical Language
The vernacular 2
Liturgical Language
Latin 2
Organisation
Ordination
Holy Orders / Apostolic Succession 2
Ordination
Vowed Religious Profession (not ordained) 2
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
Connections

Uses Liturgical Language

Latin, Languages

Entity-backed identity for the language enum value this record already carries, resolved to the live divinity language entity that value names, per the phase 3 entity-backed browse bucket conversion (docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md, owner decisions 2026-09-28, w-bucketconv-divlang2-0929, mapping corrected). The language fact itself, with its own citation, stays on the record unchanged; this relationship only adds the durable entity identity the value already names.

Entity-backed identity for the language enum value this record already carries, resolved to the live divinity language entity that value names, per the phase 3 entity-backed browse bucket conversion (docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md, owner decisions 2026-09-28, w-bucketconv-divlang2-0929, mapping corrected). The language fact itself, with its own citation, stays on the record unchanged; this relationship only adds the durable entity identity the value already names.

Sources
1. Wikipedia, "Company of Mary"
  • lead paragraph
    The Company of Mary (Latin: Societas Mariae Monfortana; abbreviated SMM), commonly known as the Montfort Missionaries, is a missionary religious congregation within the Catholic Church. The
  • Introduction, apostolate
    The Company of Mary (Latin: Societas Mariae Monfortana; abbreviated SMM), commonly known as the Montfort Missionaries, is a missionary religious congregation within the Catholic Church.
View the Source
2. Islamic Mysticism: A Short History
Alexander Knysh, Brill
Wikidata: Company of Mary
Wikidata Q1246707, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
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