The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known by its initials BVM, is a Roman Catholicreligious institute founded in the United States by Mother Mary Frances Clarke. Its founders were Irish Catholics. The BVM currently works in twenty-five U.S. states and three foreign countries.
In 1831, four Franciscan Tertiaries women in Dublin rented a small cottage and began an experiment in community living. Soon, the original four - Mary Frances Clarke, Margaret Mann, Rose O’Toole, and Eliza Kelly - were joined by another, Catherine Byrne. The group made an act of consecration as the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin. In this act, the band of women took one more step in becoming a formal community of women religious sisters within the Roman Catholic tradition.
Together, in March 1832, these five opened a school, Miss Clarke’s Seminary, for young girls on North Anne Street in Dublin.[1] In 1833, they met Patrick Costello, a Catholic priest from Philadelphia. From him the five learned about the plight of the Irish Catholic immigrants in America. After prayerful consideration and Fr. Costello's agreement to make arrangements for their arrival in the US, the fellowship of women, except for O'Toole (who remained in Dublin long enough to settle a family estate) decided to leave their homeland to teach in Philadelphia. They arrived in New York in September, 1833.
During the voyage, the women had entrusted their money to Kelly. As she was climbing down a rope ladder to depart the ship, the purse containing the money accidentally fell into the harbor.[1] In a further setback, the women discovered that Fr. Costello had not prepared for their arrival, and was nowhere to be found. When they finally arrived in Philadelphia, they were taken in by Margaret McDonough, who found them lodging, and directed them to a young priest.
Ms McDonough directed the group to Fr. Terence James Donaghoe, who had just been named pastor of the yet-to-be-built parish of St. Michael’s. After meeting the women, Fr. Donaghoe invited them to teach in his parish school, as soon as it was completed. In the interim, the women decided to open a school of their own, which they named Sacred Heart.
The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was officially founded on November 1, 1833.[2] Fr. Donaghoe drafted a rule for the small community and subsequently became father director, while Clarke was named mother superior. For the next ten years, the sisters continued to teach as well as gain new members.
Iowa Territory
Mount Carmel, the Motherhouse complex, in Dubuque
In 1843, Bishop Mathias Loras of the Diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, who had been visiting Philadelphia, invited the sisters to come teach in the Iowa Territory. The pioneer BVMs, by then nineteen in number, moved to Dubuque, Iowa,[1] and began to teach the children of settlers, lead miners, and farmers. They opened a boarding school, St. Mary’s Academy, which was the predecessor of the St. Raphael Cathedral school. They were the first women religious in the territory and would soon open many additional schools.
During their first years in Iowa, the building was used for another school, Sacred Heart. In 1859, the building again saw new life when the St. Joseph Prairie boarding school moved to the site. In 1867 Jesuit priest Arnold Damen invited the sisters to open a school at Holy Family in Chicago.[3] The BVMs opened a number of schools throughout the city, including St. Mary’s and Immaculata High Schools.
In 1885, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, formerly a diocesan community, became a pontifical congregation.[4]
Continued growth
Historic view of Clarke College in Dubuque
Since the beginning, education had been the dominant charism of the BVM community. This continued as the sisterhood grew. Over the next several decades, community leaders directed significant resources on improving the education of the sisters, who were responsible for teaching a large number of students.[3]
During the twentieth century, the BVM community continued to grow in both size and number of missions. In the early 1900s, the superior sent teaching sisters to summer school programs at DePaul, Marquette, and the Catholic University of America, as well as to special institutes run at St. Mary’s, one of the community run high schools in Chicago. This ongoing education was especially important for those sisters who taught at Mt. St. Joseph; in 1901 the school received permission to begin granting three-year college degrees.
To honor Mary Frances Clarke, the name of Mt. St. Joseph College was changed to Clarke College in 1928.[5] The following year, construction began for another college, Mundelein College in Chicago. This school remained open until 1991, when it became part of Loyola University. During this time, the community continued to focus on the education of both the students, and the teaching sisters.
1937 saw the opening of a school in Memphis at which the sisters began working directly with the African American community. A few years later, in 1945 a small group of sisters opened a school in Hawaii, and by 1961 there were sisters serving in Latin America. With sisters serving in so many locations, the community developed into a well-networked educational system that spanned the country, from New York to California, and beyond.
Throughout its history, the community has experienced numerous fires. In addition to the 1849 fire at St. Joseph Prairie, there was a 1955 fire at the infirmary at the Dubuque motherhouse, a 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels (a BVM grammar school in Chicago), and a 1984 fire at Clarke College.
New era
1961 marked the beginning of a new era in the community and the construction of one of the last remaining BVM high schools. Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois was a joint project with the Carmelite Fathers.
In 1967, the Tenth General Chapter sought to respond to the invitations of the Second Vatican Council. The BVMs responded to the Council’s call to renewal. Their mission and ministry expanded around the globe and beyond the traditional field of education to include health care, pastoral services, and social justice.[6] Activities which followed included legislation approving a new government structure, the Totally Open Personal Application (TOPA), which gave sisters the freedom to apply for jobs of their choice, and an affiliate program, which consisted of an organized grouping of non-vowed men and women interested in participating in the BVM values. 1968 saw the closing of the last boarding school.
On November 1, 2007 the congregation celebrated their 175th anniversary. The theme of the year was “Crossing the Waters, Currents of Hope: Celebrating 175 years of BVM Presence and Partnership”.
The BVMs have not been without controversy. During the 1980s, several sisters underwent "training" for the priesthood and began advocating for the Roman Catholic Church to ordain women, in opposition to centuries of teachings.[citation needed] It is unclear whether there is still BVM support for the change.
Social Action
The community has been actively involved in working for peace with justice. During the Civil Rights Movement, sisters participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. A number of sisters participated in the annual demonstration at the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation each year. Sisters of Charity are on the staff of NETWORK and the 8th Day Center for Justice, a coalition of Catholic religious congregations striving for social change. BVM sisters and their associates collaborate with other women religious and advocacy organizations on issues such as immigration reform, human trafficking, opposition to the death penalty, and nonviolence, especially for women and children. [3] The congregation has also taken a corporate stance against the death penalty, has declared that the Mount Carmel campus in Dubuque is a nuclear-free zone, and supports national comprehensive immigration reform.
Currently the congregation has sisters living in nineteen states, and in three foreign countries: Ghana, Ecuador, and Guatemala. Ministries of the sisters include working as chaplains in hospitals, hospices and prisons, working with those with addictions or AIDS, pastoral service, spiritual direction, counselling and education.
The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute has about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They also started many education and health care facilities around the world.
Clarke University is a private Roman Catholic university in Dubuque, Iowa. The campus is on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and downtown Dubuque. Clarke offers a broad undergraduate curriculum in 19 academic departments with over 40 majors and programs. The university also provides graduate master's and doctoral degrees in select areas of study and has a general enrollment of approximately 1,200 students.
Mathias Loras was an immigrant French priest to the United States and the first bishop of the Dubuque Diocese in what would become the state of Iowa.
Mundelein College was a private, independent, Roman Catholic women's college in Chicago, Illinois. Located on the edge of the Rogers Park and Edgewater neighborhoods on the far north side of the city, Mundelein College was founded and administered by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1991, Mundelein became an affiliated college of Loyola University Chicago. It has since become completely incorporated..
Saint Joseph's Prairie Church is a former Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. The parish was located in Washington Township, Dubuque County, Iowa - which is about ten miles south of Dubuque.
Carmel Catholic High School is a co-educational, college preparatory, Catholic high school run jointly by the priests and brothers of the Order of Carmelites and the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Located in Mundelein, Illinois, Carmel serves all of Lake County, as well as some of the surrounding counties, and southern Wisconsin. An institution of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, Carmel Catholic is one of three Carmelite-run high schools in the Chicago area, the others being Joliet Catholic High School and Mount Carmel High School.
Mother Mary Frances Clarke, B.V.M. was an Irish nun who founded the Catholic order of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Initially started in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to provide educational opportunities for immigrants' children, the order relocated in the 1840s to Dubuque, Iowa, and established prairie schools across the high plains. One of those initial schools later became Clarke University. She was posthumously inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame.
The Presentation Sisters, officially the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are a religious institute of Roman Catholic women founded in Cork, Ireland, by the Venerable Honora "Nano" Nagle in 1775. The Sisters of the congregation use the postnominal initials P.B.V.M.
Bishop Conaty-Our Lady of Loretto High School is a Catholic, archdiocesan, all-female high school located in the Byzantine-Latino Quarter of Los Angeles, California. It is located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Sister Anne Carr was a Catholic nun, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an activist, and feminist theologian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she was the first female permanent member of the faculty. She was well known for her beliefs regarding feminism and seen as an advocate for women's rights. Carr specialized in feminism theology regarding Catholic thought and during her lifetime she wrote ground breaking books which examined feminism and Christianity.
St. Mary IC School is a Roman Catholic K-8 school in Guttenberg, Iowa, United States. It formerly had a high school division that operated from 1921 to 1968. It is within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque.
Francis John Dunn was a bishop in the Catholic Church in the United States. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in the state of Iowa from 1969 to 1989.
Corpus Christi Catholic Church is a parish of the Diocese of Sioux City. The church is located in Fort Dodge, Iowa, United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Immaculate Conception Academy, known locally as ICA, was a Catholic girls' high school located in Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was begun by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) in 1859 and it remained in operation until it merged with St. Ambrose Academy in 1958 to form Assumption High School. The academy building remains in use as an academic building on the campus of Palmer College of Chiropractic.
St. Boniface Church is a former parish church of the Diocese of Davenport. The church was founded in the town of Lyons, which is now the north side of Clinton, Iowa, United States. The church building is now a museum named The Catholic Historical Center at St. Boniface, with exhibits about the history of the Clinton area Catholic community, and an archive of local Catholic church artifacts and records. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Mary Kenneth Keller, B.V.M. was an American Catholic religious sister, educator and pioneer in computer science. She was the first person to earn a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States. Keller and Irving C. Tang were the first two recipients of computer science doctorates.
Garryowen or Garry Owen is an unincorporated community in Butler Township, Jackson County, Iowa, United States, generally surrounding St. Patrick's Church.
St. Joseph Academy (SJA) was a Catholic all-girls high school in Des Moines, Iowa. It merged with Dowling Catholic High School in 1972.
Sister Jean, BVM, is an American religious sister of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and chaplain for the Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team of Loyola University Chicago.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
