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| La Madeleine Chapel in Bordeaux, France. Fr. Chaminade's apartment was at the windows to the right. |
Very Rev. Joseph Simler, biographer of Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, comments on the coincidence and difference in the two Societies of Mary:
By a singular coincidence another Society of Mary was founded on almost the same date in Lyons by a zealous priest, Father Colin. It was not until much later that the two founders and the two orders came to know each other. There seems to have been talk of a possible merger of the two, but apparently their purposes were sufficiently different to justify the separate existence of the two societies.
Father Simler could accept that various groups, though similar, could fight for the same good cause:
Other congregations of men, like the Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Bishop de Mazenod, the Little Brothers of Mary of Father Champagnat, and the Sons of Mary Immaculate of Father Baudouin, were founded simultaneously at the dawn of the century. Although these societies were guided by different inspirations, they all merit their existence as so many distinct phalanxes under the one standard of her who will preside over the new struggles and the new triumphs of the Church.
