A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Oratory

ORATORY, priests of the. There were two religious congregations which assumed this name; the one founded in Italy by Philip de Neri in 1548; who also founded an hospital for pilgrims to Rome so large that in the year 1600, it lodged successively 470,000 persons. The other, called "the oratory of Jesus," was founded in France and its chief object was "neither learning nor theology;" --but to cultivate "the virtues of the ecclesiastical life."