They constituted a society whose statutes were confirmed by a brief of Leo XIII, 5 July 1878. It bound its members to refute calumnies of enemies of the Church, whether derived from distortions of history, jurisprudence, or dogma, but above all are they to devote their legal knowledge to a defense of the Church's rights before civil tribunals. The society was formed in 1877, on the occasion of the Golden Episcopal Jubilee of Pope Pius IX, and the Advocate Count Cajetan Agnelli dei Malherbi, of Rome, became its first president. The ordinary members were jurists, but the society also enrolled as honorary members distinguished ecclesiastics or laymen who have made it a practice to defend Church interests along the lines of this organization.