RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Collgny Collegialism
COLLEGIA NATIONALIA (PONTIFICIA): The
name of several training-schools in Rome for missionaries destined to labor m Christian but not Roman Catholic countries. Their original foundation was due to Ignatius Loyola, who established the first of them for Germany m 1552. The later ones are all modeled after this, the Collegium Germanicum. After a short period of prosperity, it declined and was in a poor condition when Gregory XIII. restored it in 1573, following up this action by the foundation of Greek (1577), English (1579), Hungarian (united in 1584 with the German), Maronite (1584), and Thracian-IUyrian colleges, as well as three similar institutions at Vienna, Origin and Prague, and Fulda. The system re- Early ceived two notable additions on the History, foundation of the English College.
Candidates for admission were to be received only after several months' probation and the taking of a vow never to abandon the clerical state and to be always ready to return to their native country and work there at the bidding of their superiors. Five special privileges, moreover, considerably facilitating ordination, were conceded to those who were thus received. These two points, with their analogy to monastic conditions, made the colleges almost monastic cpngregations, whose superiors were the cardinal protectors assigned to them. The revised statutes, however, given to the German College in 1584 forbade the reception of those who had already taken the vows of an order, or the taking of such vows by a member of the college, as this would have been inconsistent with their lifelong dedication to their special work.
Some of Gregory's foundations, including those at Prague, Vienna, and Fulda, lapsed in course of time. The German-Hungarian, Greek, English, and Maronite went on, and Clement VIII. added a Scottish College in 1600. On the establishment in 1622 of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide the oversight of the colleges gradually passed into its hands in all essential points. Under its Later De- auspices the Collegiiun Urbammi de velopment. Propaganda Fide was founded by Gregory XV. in 1627, and the Irish College a year later. Other new or revived foundations outside of Rome with similar arnas were those of Vienna, Prague and Loreto (1627), Fulda (1628), the archiepiscopal seminary of Prague (1638), the Greek seminary at San Benedetto in UUano (1732), and the Chinese at Naples (1736). By the middle of the nineteenth century the Maronite College had been united with the Urbanum, and a number of others founded, including a Greek seminary at Palermo; a Swiss at Milan; the great Semmaire des Missions ^;t^ang&res for China and the neighboring regions and the Seminaire du Saint- Esprit for the French colonies, both in Paris; an Irish college there and at Douai, and four colleges m Ireland itself, at Dublin, Younghall, Thurles, and Carlow, the last destined for forei gn missionaries.
Of the national colleges erected in Rome the ^erman, Greco-Ruthenian, English, Scottish, and insh are still in operation. These all train their students for work in a definite geographical area;
even the general Collegium Urbanum educates each student for his own native country, and as a rule sends him back there. The constitutions of
all these colleges follow more or less Present closely that of the German College. Satus. The students, drawn as far as possible
from the country in which they are to work, are under the direction of some order, usually the Jesuits. They remain in a permanent relation of intercourse with the rector of their college, who in his turn is subject to the Propaganda. There are a number of other more or less similar institutions in Rome which must not be confounded with the national colleges. These serve for their respective countries (North and South America, Belgium, Poland, Bohemia, Switzerland, France) as homes for the students coming thence to attend the lectures of the Collegiimi Romanum; only the North American and the Polish have the status of collegia pontificia, i.e., under the immediate supervision of the pope. (See Curia.)
(E. Fhiedberg.)
Bibliography: O. Mejer, Die Propaganda, Gottingen, i. 73-91, 225-245, Gottingen, 1852; A. Bellesheim, William Cardinal Allen und die englischen Seminare auf dem Festlande, Mainz, 1885; KL, iii. 610-646 (very extended treatment). On the German College: Das deutsche Collegium in Rom, Leipsic, 1843; A. Steinhuber, Geschichte des Collegium germanicum-hungaricum in Rom, 2 vols., Freiburg, 1894.