Sodalities of Our Lady of Krakow Secondary School Pupils in the 19th Century and in the Period of the Second Republic of Poland

The Sodality of Our Lady is a Catholic religious association for young people formed in the Jesuit College in Rome in 1563 by Father J. Leunis. The ablest and most devout boys joined the Sodality in order to spread the cult of the Mother of God. The popes provided care for the actively developing Sodality movement because of the great influence Sodalities of Our Lady had on religious education of young people. Jesuits established Sodality congregations of pupils at colleges in all Catholic countries, forming an international elite organization of lay Catholics. Sodalities throve and they spread to all the estates in the 17th and the first half of the 18th century. Not only school pupils belonged to it, but so did the popes, kings, the gentry, clergy, townspeople, craftsmen, military men and servants. The supreme aim of the Sodality was to live according to the motto “Per Mariam ad Jesum”. The development of the Sodality was halted by the dissolution of the Jesuit Order. In the middle of the 19th century the pronouncement of the dogma about the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin made by Pope Pious IX opened a new era of the cult and a new period in the history of the Sodality. The first Sodality congregation of school pupils in Poland was established in Braniewo in 1571. At the end of the 18th century, before the dissolution of the Jesuit Order, in the lands of Poland there were 66 colleges, seminaries and convicts, and there was always at least one congregation affiliated to each of the schools. At the end of the 19th century school Sodalities were revived in Galicia: in Tarnopol, Chyrow, Tarnów and in Krakow in the secondary school for girls run by the Ursulines. A dynamic development of Sodality associations of secondary school pupils started after Poland regained independence in 1918. The center of the Sodality movement for all the estates was Krakow. The movement gained strong foundations in the two powerful Sodality associations of secondary schools pupils – boys' and girls' ones. Rev. Józef Winkowski organized the Sodality for boys and Rev. Józef Chrząszcz – for girls. Sodalities published their own magazines, organized conventions, pilgrimages to Jasna Góra, and ran charity organizations. At the end of the 1930s nearly 17 thousand secondary school pupils all over Poland belonged to school Sodalities. At the end of the time of the Second Republic of Poland the greatest number of school Sodalities worked in Krakow. There were 11 boys' Sodalities in secondary schools run by the state and one in a private school run by the Piarist Order, and 11 girls' Sodalities in state and private schools. The Sodality of Our Lady contributed to the religious revival in Poland. Development of this organization was stopped by World War II. After the war, in the years 1945-49 the Sodality of Our Lady resumed work in many centers. The liquidation of Church organizations in 1949 stopped its work, and its members were persecuted by the Communist authorities