The Medical Mission Sisters (MMS) is a religious congregation of women in the Roman Catholic Church. It was founded in September 1925 with a goal of providing better access to health care to poor people around the world. [1] [2] They were formerly known as the "Society of the Catholic Medical Missions."
The MMS congregation grew out of the experiences of Dr. Anna Dengel, who is originally from Austria. [3] Dengel served as a medical missionary for several years in what was then Northern India (modern-day Pakistan). [4] [5] Dengel became convinced that only a group of Religious Sisters who had been professionally trained as physicians could reach the women in that region. Such a project, however, was contrary to the canon law of the time, since it prohibited members of religious institutes from practicing medicine. [6] [7]
Dengel made plans for a new community and drew up a constitution for it. She wrote that the members were “to live for God...to dedicate themselves to the service of the sick for the love of God and...to be properly trained according to the knowledge and standards of the time in order to practice medicine in its full scope, to which the Sisters were to dedicate their lives”.
Permission was granted on June 12, 1925, to begin the new congregation and, on September 30, 1925, the “First Four” - Dr. Anna Dengel of Austria, Dr. Johanna Lyons of Chicago, Evelyn Flieger, R.N., originally from Britain, and Marie Ulbrich, R.N., of Luxemburg, Iowa - came together in Washington, D.C. to begin the Medical Mission Sisters. [8] [9]
The “First Four” were unable to profess religious vows officially because the Catholic Church had yet to approve Sisters working in the medical field, [6] but they chose to live as professed Sisters. In 1935, the Catholic Church changed its regulations and approved Sisters’ working in medicine and all of its branches. [10] The MMS then made their public, canonical vows, and began to establish communities around the world.
The North American headquarters for the Congregation was established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1964.
The General Chapter meets every six years to re-interpret the Society’s mission. It will also elect the Society Co-Ordinator (Superior General) and the Society Leadership Team. [11]
In 1964 the Sisters followed the example of The Singing Nun (Soeur Sourire) and began singing their own homegrown brand of spiritually-themed folk music as an aide to the medical health and wellness they professed.
The following year one of the most prolific of these composers, Sister Miriam Therese Winter composed Joy is Like the Rain, which became a Grammy-award-winning worldwide hit. [12] Response was so strong to the song that other songs were written and a marathon eight-hour recording session was commissioned in Philadelphia in early 1966. [13]
In 1965, at the request of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Mother Anna made a visit to that nation to investigate the possibilities of starting a hospital for the people there. Two Medical Mission Sisters came to Ethiopia in 1967 to start the groundwork for this mission. A few more Sisters arrived in 1969, and Attat Hospital was opened that year. [14] In 2022, the Medical Director, Sister Rita Schiffer, received the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation Award. [15]
As of 2023, there are about 450 Sisters in the congregation, serving in 20 nations, as well as over 100 lay Associates. [16]
The Sisters serve through health care and education, wholeness and wellness programs, the development of women, work for justice, worship and spirituality, and music and song. Along with their Associates, they have committed themselves to live the mission of the Society, which is "to be a healing presence at the heart of a wounded world.". [17] Their work includes:
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The Sisters of St. Joseph, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, abbreviated CSJ or SSJ, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women founded in Le Puy-en-Velay, France, in 1650. This congregation, named for Saint Joseph, has approximately 14,000 members worldwide: about 7,000 in the United States; 2,000 in France; and are active in 50 other countries.
An African-initiated church (AIC) is a Christian church independently started in Africa by Africans rather than chiefly by missionaries from another continent.
SisterMiriam Therese Winter is a Roman Catholic Medical Mission Sister, theologian, writer and songwriter. Her hymns include "Joy Is Like the Rain" (1966), "Knock Knock" (1968), and "Wellspring of Wisdom" (1989). As a Medical Mission Sister, Winter has worked along the Thai-Cambodian border and in Ethiopia at refugee camps. Winter has also traveled to communities in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya and India to spread her music as well as performing in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
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Agnes McLaren FRCPI was a respected Scottish doctor who was one of the first to give medical assistance to women in India who, because of custom, were unable to access medical help from male doctors. Agnes was active in social justice causes including protests against the white slave trade. She signed the 1866 women's suffrage petition and was secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage alongside her stepmother, Priscilla Bright McLaren. In 1873 she travelled with Priscilla and Jane Taylour to give suffrage lectures in Orkney and Shetland. Her father had supported the campaign of first women who sought to study medicine at University of Edinburgh and Agnes became friends with Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the Edinburgh Seven. Her father did not however, support Agnes' own ambitions in this area. And as she could not graduate in medicine in Scotland, she went to study in France and later, in order to be permitted to practice at home, became a member of the Royal College of Dublin.
Mother Anna Maria Dengel, Medical Mission Sisters (S.C.M.M.), was an Austrian physician, Religious Sister and missionary. She was the founder of the Medical Mission Sisters, which was among the first congregations of Religious Sisters authorized by the Roman Catholic Church to provide full medical care to the poor and needy in the overseas missions.
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