Association of the Holy Childhood
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| Founded | 1843 (174 years ago) |
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| Founder | Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson |
| Type | Pontifical Mission Society |
| Location |
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| Website | www.onefamilyinmission.org/hca.html |
The Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood (Latin: Pontificium Opus a Sancta Infantia) or Missionary Childhood Association, is a Catholic children's association for the benefit of foreign missions. It is one of four Pontifical Mission Societies and is dedicated to fostering children’s awareness of the missionary nature of the Church.
In 1843 Charles de Forbin-Janson, Bishop of Nancy, France, established the Association of the Holy Childhood (Association de la Sainte Enfance). Forbin-Janson sought a way to assist missionaries in China who had written for help. On the advice of Pauline Jaricot, who had founded the Society for the Propagation of the Faith some twenty years before, he established a children’s charity to provide assistance to children in foreign lands. Popes and other ecclesiastical dignitaries approved the association and recommended it to the Catholic faithful.
Pope Pius IX, by a brief of 18 July 1856, raised it to the rank of a canonical institution, gave it a Cardinal protector, and requested all bishops to introduce it in their dioceses. Pope Leo XIII, in the encyclical letter Sancta Dei civitas (3 December 1890), blessed it and recommended it again to the bishops.
The affairs of the association were managed by an international council at Paris, consisting of fifteen priests and as many laymen. This general council had an exclusive right of general direction and of the distribution of the society's funds.
The association was probably established in the United States by Bishop Forbin-Janson himself. Several agencies in the East and West managed its affairs for about fifty years. On 1 January 1893, the work was concentrated into one central agency and confided to the Holy Ghost Fathers, with headquarters in Pittsburgh. Father Anthony J. Zielenbach, C.S.Sp., was its first central director for about four years; he was succeeded by Father John Willms, C.S.Sp. The Annals of the Holy Childhood was published bi-monthly and issued in a number of languages.
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