Scolopi

The Order of Poor Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, commonly called Scolopi or Piarists are a Religious Order founded in the period of the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church attempted to reorganize its structure and its objectives to respond to the spread of Protestant doctrines. José de Calasanz (1557-1648), a religious of Spanish origin who settled in Rome in the nineties of the sixteenth century, founded the first free popular school (Pious school) in 1597, at the Church of Santa Dorotea (Saint Dorothy) in Trastevere. The aim of the instruction and Christian education of young people was now the main focus of the congregation of secular priests without vows that formed around Calasanz and which was established, with the oral approval of Pope Clement VIII, in 1602. In 1617 the religious congregation for teaching was founded, elevated to the status of Regular Order on 18 November 1621 by a brief of Pope Gregory XV. It spread throughout Catholic Europe, but the Order experienced a first period of severe crisis when its founder was summoned before the Inquisition and suspended from the office of Superior General. The Order was reduced to a congregation of secular priests under the jurisdiction of local bishops in 1646 but then restored in 1669 by Pope Clement IX. The Piarists enjoyed a period of great splendor during the eighteenth century in which they asserted themselves abroad for their modern teaching methods.