The Universal Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena is an international movement of faithful that, through the devotion to our Martyr, promotes love to Jesus and Mary. Each Archconfraternity Centre, through their local autonomy, promotes devotion to the Saint in their local area.
What is the Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena?
The term confraternity comes to us from both old french confraternité and medieval latin confraternitas, which is made up of two words: ‘Con’ meaning ‘Together, With’ and ‘frater’ meaning ‘brother’, litterally meaning a Brotherhood.
In secular understanding, A confraternity is a group of individuals who share common interests and goals bound together in a family with a unique identity. In our case, we’re also known as ‘the worldwide Family of Saint Philomena’ as we all share our love and devotion to our dear little saint, expressed by our Philomenian spirituality, adherence to our statutes, directives, and marks of our devotions (e.g. by wearing of the cord of St. Philomena).
When the Church uses the word ‘confraternity’ it refers to a legal entity under canon law, identifying it as an association of faithful and granted rights, privileges especially when it comes to graces and indulgences. Whereas a pious union only exists so long as there are still living members spreading the devotion, a confraternity is fixed in perpetuity by virtue of it being canonically erected as a legal entity.
An archconfraternity simply allows the founding confraternity to aggregate all other confraternities under itself with papal permission spread the devotion across its founding country, a universal Archconfraternity extends this on a global scale sharing its rights and privileges across the wider church.
Founded in Paris as ‘The work of St. Philomena’ on the 12th February 1884, it was raised to the rank of Archconfraternity on 24th September 1889 by Pope Leo XIII. Later, Pope St. Pius X renewed his blessing to the Work of Saint Philomena with the following touching words, “For the beloved members of the Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena and of the Blessed Jean Marie Vianney, with the fervent wish that, for the intercession of the One or the Other, our Lord will be prodigal with his greatest graces for all. We cordially send the Apostolic Blessing.“
To authoritatively and definitely affirm the devotion of Saint Philomena, and put an end to some pointless discussions, on 21 May 1912 Pope St. Pius X promoted the venerable Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena to Universal Archconfraternity, through the Apostolic Brief “Pias Fidelium Societates”, in which he clearly explained,
“We decree that the following scripture shall be stable, valid and effective, now and always and that it shall receive and obtain its full and whole effects, and so it has to be regularly judged and defined, and if it proceeds in any other way, it will be null and without any value, whatever the authority…”
Later, the Universal Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena was revived in 1987 by Msgr. Giovanni Braschi the late Rector of the Sanctuary of Saint Philomena. In 2011 he appointed Mrs. Marie Burns in the lifetime role as Worldwide Director in recognising the many years of work and dedication to the devotion.
On June 20th 2024, our worldwide director Mrs Marie Burns travels to Paris and visits The Church of Notre Dame de la Salette, the historical birth-place of the Universal Archconfraternity and meets Fr. Philippe Maura, pastor of the church. This initial meeting was fruitful where we were able to finally obtain contact with the church where the legacy archconfraternity was canonically erected.
In this brief meeting we obtain a signed letter recognizing the Archconfraternity headquartered in Glasgow, authorizing it, and extending the legacy archconfraternities privileges to us.
Then on June 21st 2024, a follow up meeting with Fr. Maura further established contact between the legacy Archconfraternity and the organization headquartered in Glasgow. Following the signed letter, certificates were signed recognizing, and authorizing us to take over and continue the work and vision of Louis Abbe Petit. This long sought after result, initially begun by Don Giovanni Braschi, finally bore fruit as we were able to entwine both threads of history of the Archconfraternity into one continuous strand.
In addition to the signed documents, we were also able to re-establish the old tradition of masses being said at Notre Dame de la Salette for all members of the Archconfraternity every second Friday of the month.
And so, the Work of the Universal Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena continues from our Operational Headquarters based in Glasgow, Scotland, with many centres associated with it worldwide with each devotional groups called Archconfraternity centres and have an affiliated centre number.