Francis Mary of the Cross Jordan, SDS (16 June 1848 – 8 September 1918), was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Society of the Divine Savior, commonly called the Salvatorians.

Through his travels throughout Germany, he became aware of the effects of the German government's official policies restricting the activities of the Catholic Church, known as the Kulturkampf, which was resulting in the loss of many of the faithful.

After receiving his degree from the university, he enrolled in the nearby St. Peter Seminary [2] On 21 July 1878, he was ordained a priest for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg.

[2] That following April, an advertisement for the new society was answered by Baroness Maria Therese von Wüllenweber (1833-1907), an aristocratic young woman who had long felt a call to serve in the mission life which had been unfilled by the religious congregations she had explored.

Wüllenweber was beatified on October 13, 1968, and her liturgical commemoration is celebrated on September 5 (the day she professed her vows as the first female member of the Apostolic Teaching Society).

[6] In 1892 Jordan accepted the request of Ambrose Oschwald, a priest from Baden, who had led a group of people from that region to Wisconsin, in the United States, in order to form a Christian communal way of life.

Due to the outbreak of World War I, and the restrictions it imposed on the communications of the society, its administration was moved to Tafers, Switzerland, a neutral nation.

On 14 January 2011, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to publish the decree on the heroicity of his virtues, granting him the title of Venerable.

This ministry, which was discontinued in 2022, provided initial and ongoing formation permanent deacon and lay ecclesial minsters, as well as catechists, parish staff members, and Catholic school teachers at all levels through their online and in-person programming.