Mercy, Brothers of Our Lady of, founded at Mechlin in 1839 by Canon J. B. Cornelius Scheppers for the instruction and care of prisoners and of the sick. They were invited to S. Balbina at Perugia by Cardinal Pecci, afterwards Leo XIII, who had witnessed their work while he was nuncio at Brussels. It was at his instance that Pius IX confirmed the constitution of the Brothers in 1854. In 1855 Cardinal Manning invited them to London, where they have undertaken the care of the prisoners in Catholic reformatories and are also occupied with the education of the children of poor. They are under simple vows and the term of the novitiate is one year. They wear a black habit and scapular with a brown cross on the breast.
Heimpucuer, Die Orden und Kongregationen, III, 361; SrreLtr, Monasteries and Religious Houses of Great Britain (London, 1903), 51.
Blanche M. Kelly.