Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate is a Catholic missionary religious congregation dedicated to evangelizing among the poorest and most abandoned populations, founded on 25 January 1816 in Aix en Provence, France, by Eugene de Mazenod, initially as the Society of Missionaries of Provence preaching parish missions in the Provencal dialect. The congregation received papal recognition from Pope Leo XII on 17 February 1826 as a congregation of pontifical right under the name Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary. As of 2020 it comprised about 3,786 members, including 2,741 priests, working worldwide through parishes, schools, retreat centers and missionary work among Indigenous peoples, a history that includes documented cases of abuse within residential schools it administered in Canada.