When did our history begin? According to thorough research, our origins are found in the installation of the Third Republic in France. In the beginning of this regime, in 1880 to be more precise, a certain number of repressive decrees and laws were enacted against religious congregations. The Jesuits were expelled. Other congregations, such as the Oblates, were forced to disband; their belongings would have been confiscated if they had refused to submit to the supervision of the government.

Episodes of violence followed, and it is because of the brutal eviction from the Sacred Heart Scholasticate in Autun that the Roman Scholasticate was created. After a short stay at Inchicore in Ireland, a group of scholastics was sent to Rome by the Superior General, Father Fabre. In fact, the idea had already been put forward Father Martinet, assistant to the General, but it was only after the expulsion at Autun that this was accepted.

The Rome to which the students came was very different from the Rome visited by the Founder, who had then been dead for twenty years. Under Victor Immanuel II, Rome had become the capital of the monarchy. The Pope, Pius IX, had become “the prisoner of the Vatican.” Much Church property was lost, including the great universities: the Sapienza, the Minerva, the Collegio Romano or Gregorian.