Pontifical Missionary Union brochure

























Unlike the other Societies, the Pontifical Missionary Union has its immediate and specific purpose the promotion of missionary work and the spread of the Missions, not through aid, but through the direct commitment of those who, like the Apostles, have received the command: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….” (Mt. 28:19). The Union was founded by Blessed Father Paolo Manna and recognized by Pope Benedict XV on 30th October 1916. Blessed Fr. Paulo Manna had a profound and deeply felt experience of the enormous needs of the missions. Born at Avellino, in Italy, on 6th January, 1871, he grew up fascinated by accounts he read in missionary reviews and resolved to be a missionary. At the end of 1895, Paolo sailed from Trieste to Burma.

He became famous for his linguistic ability and his methods of inculturation. He stated that he did not want to preach in the same way he preached in Europe. He respected their traditions and integrated their ways of speaking and thinking into his work of evangelization. But, paradoxically, his real achievement would not have been Possible had he not been forced out of active missionary life in June 1907 by repeated bouts of malaria. At the age of 35 years he saw his future as being very Gloomy with all his hopes and plans for good works quite destroyed. However, there were those who sensed where his other talents lay and he was appointed editor of the review for the Milan Institute for Foreign Missions. Fr. Paulo realized the power of the written word and his own abilities in this field and that there was a mission apostolate to be found in the press. He was aware that he himself was but one solitary priests with a deep and abiding interest in foreign missions, but how much more could be achieved if every priest could be fired with a similar enthusiasm. He set out to band all priests together in one association for that purpose. By 1916 he had arrived at the idea of a Missionary Union of the Clergy and obtained approval from Pope Benedict XV on 31st October 1916. In order to encourage many vocations for the missions, in his increasingly numerous writings Fr. Manna insisted on the irreplaceable role of priests in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the formation of the missionary awareness of the People of God. The Union spread rapidly after the Pope recommended its presence in every diocese in his Encyclical Maximum Illud (1919). With a great activity of preaching and publications, Fr. Manna inflamed ecclesiastics and laity alike with the missionary ideal, while he challenged young people to realize this ideal. For him there is no such thing as a missionary vocation distinct from the priestly or Christian vocation; his motto is: “All Missionaries”. For Fr. Manna all baptized, but above all “every priest is by his very nature and definition missionary”. He complained that for a great part of the clergy “a great elementary truth” has been obscured, “namely, that the primary function of the Church is evangelization of the world the whole world”. Priests together with the religious and laity are natural mission workers. With the decree of 28th October 1956 Pope Pius XII conferred the title “Pontifical” on the union, and it was therefore renamed “Pontifical Mission Union of the Clergy, Religious and Laity”. More simply it is known as the “Pontifical Missionary Union” (PMU).

The Society of Missionary Union strives










©2007 all rights reserved Pontifical Mission Societies.