William Joseph Chaminade - Founder

Founder

When he returned to Bordeaux in November 1800, he re-established the Marian Sodality, which he hoped would promote the desecularization of France by offering "the spectacle of a people of saints". He saw the development of the young lay movement as the prime focus of his mission. In this he was opposed by the traditionalist forces in the Church, both clergy and lay, who saw the re-creation of the privileges and institutions of the pre-Revolutionary Church as the true goal of their restoration of the faith in France. In 1824 Chaminade published a reply to that line of thinking in which he stated, "The levers that move the moral world somehow need a new fulcrum."

The sodality spread to other cities, and the Vatican recognized his efforts by appointing him Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Bazas and later, in 1801, naming him an "Apostolic Missionary" to the region, confirming their trust in him.

Some sodalitists wanted to make a more complete commitment to the Church, so Chaminade, along with the Venerable Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon (1789–1828), founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate in Agen in 1816. A year later, he founded the Society of Mary at Bordeaux. Both religious institutes devoted themselves to teaching. Chaminade sought to establish a network of schools to train Catholic teachers, but this effort was checked by the 1830 Revolution. However, both of Chaminade's religious institutes continued to grow: the Daughters of Mary founded schools in south-western France to educate rural women and the Society of Mary expanded in France and spread to Switzerland (1839) and the United States of America (1850).