The Fathers of Mercy

Seen above is Father Eugene H. Porcile, S.P.M. (1839-1912), a French-born member of the Fathers of Mercy, who served as provincial for his order in the United States at the turn of the century. (Religious orders are usually divided into provinces, and the heads of them are called provincials.) For many years he was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. In 1894, he led the Brooklyn Diocese’s first trip to Lourdes, and his parish became a site for local pilgrimages. In 1910, he was elected Superior General of the order and died in Belgium two years later.

The Fathers of Mercy were founded in France in 1808 by Father Jean Baptiste Rauzan (1757-1847). Because the French Revolution had done severe damage to the nation’s religious life, Father Rauzan organized a group of priests to work for the re-evangelization of the country. They did this mainly through preaching missions. Originally titled the Missionaries of France, they were renamed the Fathers of Mercy in 1834, when they received formal approval from the Vatican.

In 1839, at the request of New York’s Bishop John Hughes, they came to the United States, where they initially ministered to French-speaking Catholics. In 1842 they founded St. Vincent De Paul, New York City’s first French parish. By the 1940’s, the order existed only in the United States, and it was canonically reorganized in the early 1960’s. Today the Fathers take an active part in the New Evangelization called for by the late Pope John Paul II.