Claude was tutored at home before being enrolled at the age of nine or ten as a day student in the nearby Jesuit College of St. Thomas, thus beginning his lifelong association with the Society of Jesus.

Having opted for the priesthood, Claude Poullart des Places wanted to form a religious institute for young men who had vocations to become priests but were too poor to do so.

[5] Formed in dedication to the Holy Spirit to minister to the poor and to provide chaplains in hospitals, prisons, and schools, the community soon developed a missionary role: some volunteered for service in the Far East and North America.

Spiritans also sent missionaries to China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand (Siam), and India under the auspices of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.

He had survived miraculously, through a series of vicissitudes – shipwreck on the way to his destined mission in French Guiana, enslavement by the Moors, and a sojourn in Senegal, where he had been sold to the English, who then ruled there.

But it was found impossible to recover adequately from the disastrous effects of the dispersion caused by the Revolution, and the restored society was threatened with extinction.

The congregation was asked to supply missionary priests for work in the French colonies in Africa, the West Indies, and the Indian subcontinent.

Already in 1833, John England, Bishop of Charleston, had drawn attention to the West Coast of Africa, and had urged sending missioners to those regions.

This appeal was renewed at the Council of Baltimore, and the assembled fathers commissioned Edward Barron to undertake missionary work at Cape Palmas.

Libermann was made first superior general of the united societies; he is credited with renewing the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, whose name became known as "... under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary", reflecting the merger.

Houses have been opened in England, Canada,[11] Belgium, and the Netherlands, intended to develop into distinct provinces, so as to supply the colonies of these respective countries with an increase of missionaries.

[5] On 31 December 1961 twenty Spiritans: nineteen Belgians and one Dutch man, were killed in Kongolo, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by government troops during the Katanga secession rebellion.

[12] In Rome, on 24 April 1979, Pope John Paul II presided over the beatification ceremony for Jacques-Désiré Laval, the first member of the Spiritans to be so honoured.

Some noted English-speaking Spiritans in the late 20th-century include Fathers Vincent J. Donovan, Adrian Van Kaam, and Henry J. Koren.

As of 2022[update] the Congregation has had twenty-four superiors general since its foundation in 1703:[15] The British Province covers Great Britain, but not Northern Ireland, although a part of the United Kingdom.

He was appointed as Superior of Castlehead and gradually under his leadership the school flourished and boys were put through their secondary studies before going to France for the novitiate and training for the missionary priesthood.

[17] In 1939, the Spiritans bought a property in Nottinghamshire to act as a senior seminary, but the house was requisitioned[17] to provide a home for a school for partially sighted children who had been evacuated from Sussex during the Second World War.

[citation needed] On average, four new priests were ordained every year and posted to missions in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and East Africa.

As one of the founding members, the Holy Ghost Fathers closed their center in Willesborough, moving their students to London and opened a community house in Aldenham Grange, near Watford, Hertfordshire.

In 2001, two Lay Spiritans of the Salford community founded Revive, a voluntary social work agency committed to the long-term support of asylum seekers and refugees.

[18] In 2009, a report from Caritas - Social Action highlighted the work of Revive as an example of good practice with asylum seekers and refugees in the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

[20] One former Lay Spiritan, Ann-Marie Fell, was the recipient of a Catholic Women of the Year award in 2010 for her work as a prison chaplain.

In 1732 the first Spiritan missionaries arrived in North America under Father Louis Bouic, to work among the Miꞌkmaq and Acadians in French Canada.

Notable Irish Spiritans include William Patrick Power, first head of Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin 1940–73, Denis Fahey, founder of Maria Duce, Aengus Finucane, who organised food shipments to the Ibo during the Biafra War, John C. O'Riordan, former Bishop of Kenema, Sierra Leone, Robert Ellison, current Bishop of Banjul, Gambia.

The province of the United States, founded in 1873, had a novitiate and senior scholasticate at Ferndale in the Diocese of Hartford, and an apostolic college at Cornwells near Philadelphia.

For decades the Spiritans worked closely with Katherine Drexel in the apostolate to African-Americans in the urban North and in small towns and cities of the South and Southwest.

The Spiritans in America concentrate on work among immigrants, black parishes, and education in Duquesne University and Holy Ghost Preparatory School, near Philadelphia.

SOMA implements its mission by financially resourcing and practically supporting the missionary, educational, pastoral, humanitarian and charitable projects and programs of the Congregation and the U.S.

In addition to responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones, typhoons, crop infestations, draughts, famines, and viral infections such as Ebola and COVID-19, SOMA’S mission priorities include: Evangelization: related projects: catechesis, lay missionary religious training, missionary bicycles and teaching materials, church construction Education: school construction, student scholarships, desks and chairs, computer lab, training materials Economic and community Development: sustainable farming, women's sewing cooperative, parish bakeries, women's empowerment.

technical skills training Health and wellness: supplemental food, emergency generators, electricity delivery, solar paneling, rain water catchment systems, boreholes, water tanks, toilet facilities, medical dispensary construction, medical equipment and supplies, supplemental feeding Priestly Formation: seminarian tuition support, supplemental feeding, teaching aids Social Justice: women and men's rehabilitation center, cots for prison detainees, orphan care, refugee housing In 2023 the U.S.