Congregation of the Holy/Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SS.CC.) – Picpus Fathers

Some lay volunteers, through associated networks, have supported the missions connected to this congregation — not always directly through the Picpus Fathers themselves, but through related missionary initiatives.
We emphasise that Picpus fathers always sent out Fathers (missionary priest), not direct lay missionaries.  The fathers’ own congregation has long been associated with missionary work in Congo and Hawaii, and one name immediately comes to mind: Father Damien of Molokai.
He was certainly not the only one, but perhaps the most famous example — and an inspiration for many others to follow in his footsteps.

The full name of the congregation is Congrégation des Sacrés-Cœurs de Jésus et de Marie et de l’Adoration Perpétuelle du Très Saint Sacrement de l’Autel, in English: Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Commonly called the Picpus Fathers, the congregation’s name comes from Picpus, a small medieval hamlet east of Paris (now part of the 12th arrondissement), where their first house was established.

After the French Revolution, most religious communities had been suppressed, and many religious men and women were living in hiding.
Amid this turmoil, Fr. Pierre Coudrin (1768–1837), a priest from Poitiers, and Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie (1767–1834) — a French noblewoman who had herself been imprisoned during the Revolution — sought to create a new community devoted to prayer and adoration.

In 1800–1801, they purchased a quiet estate on Rue de Picpus, with enough seclusion for community life and perpetual Eucharistic adoration.
There they established their motherhouse and chapel, which remains central to the congregation today.

The Congregation of Priests and Brothers (and later a Sisters’ branch) was officially founded on Christmas Eve, 1800, in Paris and received papal approval in 1817.  Their first house, the Picpus convent, gave the congregation its popular name.

The Picpus Fathers and Brothers (SS.CC.) live from Eucharistic adoration and missionary service.
Their mission is to make the love of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary known through prayer and proclamation, expressed in parish ministry, catechesis, education, health care, and social outreach — a spirituality of “love in action,” often at the frontiers of society.

In Europe, they established parishes, schools, and retreat houses, always centered on perpetual adoration as the heart of their spirituality.
In Belgium, the congregation is best known through Saint Damien of Molokai (Fr. Jozef De Veuster, SS.CC.) and the Saint Anthony Chapel / Damien Site in Leuven, which preserves his memory and mission.

The congregation’s early missionary expansion was remarkable:

• Hawaii (then “the Sandwich Islands”) – The first Catholic mission (1827) led by Fr. Alexis Bachelot, SS.CC., who founded parishes and began catechetical and educational work.
• Gambier Islands / Tahiti (French Polynesia) – From 1834, under Fr. Honoré Laval and Fr. Caret, who established schools, churches, and social programs.
• United States (19th century) – Missionary expansion into California and New England, where they founded parishes and schools.
• Later, the congregation spread further across Europe, Africa, Central and South America, and throughout the Pacific, forming a vast international missionary network.

The first international missionary pioneer of the congregation was
Fr. Alexis Bachelot, SS.CC., who led the first Catholic mission to Hawaii in 1827.
He opened the path that would later be followed by Father Damien and generations of missionaries inspired by the same spirit of compassion and service.