Augustinians of the Assumption - 03

In the 1870s, religious launched several magazines which have, over the years, expanded into one of the largest Catholic publishing houses in the world, Bayard Press, which publishes the award-winning daily French newspaper, La Croix, and more than 100 magazines in fifteen languages. In English its best known publication is Catholic Digest.

In 1873 the Assumptionists began a series of large-scale pilgrimages both within France and to the Holy Land which developed into such current endeavors as the popular national pilgrimage to Lourdes every year on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption, gathering thousands of pilgrims.

The Assumptionist Family contains a series separate religious congregations, deriving from the same original source, i.e., the male Augustinians of the Assumption, the Brothers of the Assumption, and the following female congregations: the Religious (Sisters) of the Assumption, the Oblates (Missionary Sisters) of the Assumption, the Little Sisters of the Assumption, the Orantes of the Assumption, the Sisters of St. Joan of Arc, the Little Sisters of the Presentation of Our Lady, the Missionary Sisters of the Assumption, and the Sisters of the Cross.

Beginning with Fr d’Alzon himself in 1879, there was a desire in the Assumptionists to join the Order of St Augustine, which the latter Order and also Pope Pius IX favoured. The matter was pursued until 1920 when the Augustinian General Chapter of 1920 unexpectedly added conditions to the merger that were unacceptable to the Assumptionists. The Assumptionist Constitutions were then approved by Rome in 1923.

The Augustinians of the Assumption therefore continued in their own right, and has itself become an international religious order, operating in over thirty nations and on most continents. There are five different branches within the Assumptionist family, most of them comprising female religious.

The relationship between these two religious orders is fraternal and positive, The relationship between the Order of St Augustine and the Augustinians of the Assumption (“the Assumptionists”) is positive and cordial, and extends to active pastoral cooperation in a number of parts of the world. There is remarkable similarity in their range of apostolates, and even their religious habits.

Links