PASSIONISTS, a religious congregation of priests of the Roman Catholic church, the object of whose institute, indicated by their name, is to preach "Jesus Christ and him crucified." The founder, Paul Francis, surnamed Paul of the cross, was born in 1091 at Ovada, in the diocese of Acqui in the kingdom of Sardinia. Having commenced his career as a hermit, lie formed the design of enlisting others in the missionary life; and being ordained priest in 1737, he associated himself with ten others, and obtained for his plan the approbation of successive popes, together with the convent on the Celian hill at Rome, which still forms the mother-house of the congregation. The special object of the institute was to instill into men's minds by preaching, by example, and by devotional practices, a sense of the mercy and love of God as manifested in the passion of Christ. Hence the cross appears everywhere as their emblem, in their churches, in
their halls, and in the courts and public places of their monasteries. A large crucifix, moreover, forms part of their very striking costume. They go barefooted, and practice many other personal austerities, rising at midnight to recite the canonical hoots in the church; and their ministerial work consists chiefly in holding what are called "mis sions" wherever they are invited by the local clergy, in which sermons on the passion of Christ, on sin, and on repentance, together with the hemming of confessions, hold principal Places. Paul of the cross died in 177,5. For a time his congregation remained in obscurity; but it has risen into notice within the last half century, new houses having been founded iu England, Ireland, Belgium, America, and Australia.