The Sisters of Christian Charity (S.C.C.), officially called Sisters of Christian Charity, Daughters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, [1] is a Roman Catholic women's congregation of pontifical right founded in Paderborn, Germany, on 21 August 1849 by Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt. Their original mission was caring for impoverished and abandoned children, with a special emphasis on the blind. Today, they work in a variety of ministries.
The institute had attained great success throughout Germany when, in 1873, its members were forced into exile by the persecution of the Kulturkampf. Some went to South America, others emigrated to New Orleans, United States, where, in April 1873, they founded a house and took charge of a parochial school. Mother Pauline followed shortly after and established a new provincial mother-house, at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. [2]
In 1887 the motherhouse, which had removed to Belgium, returned to Paderborn. The congregation was confirmed on 7 February 1888 by Pope Leo XIII. [2]
The Sisters opened houses in the Archdioceses of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Saint Paul, and in the Dioceses of Albany, Belleville, Brooklyn, Harrisburg, Paterson, Sioux City, and Syracuse. [2]
In 1927, the sisters purchased the Seymour L. Cromwell estate in Mendham, New Jersey for a retreat and guest house. The 112-acre estate featured a forty-seven room Georgian-style mansion. [3] That same year, the North American Province was divided into a North American Eastern Province and a North American Western Province. The motherhouse for the Eastern province is located in Mendham, New Jersey, and the motherhouse of the Western province was located in Wilmette, Illinois. The Eastern province had as its primary work that of Catholic education. During the 1950s and 1960s the Sisters added to their field of labor the care of the sick by establishing two hospitals in Pennsylvania. [4] They have since joined to form the North American Province, based in New Jersey. The generalate is in Rome. [1]
In 1975 a group of members separated and founded the Sisters of the Living Word.
Pauline von Mallinckrodt, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Rome on 14 April 1985. [4]
By 2010, Sisters of Christian Charity were present in Germany, Italy, the United States, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, and the Philippines. the Sisters work in a variety of ministries including education, healthcare, pastoral work, retreat and spiritual centers, and social work. [4]
The Sisters of Christian Charity sponsor Assumption College for Sisters, a two-year Roman Catholic women's college on the campus of Morris Catholic High School. Founded in 1953 through an affiliation with Seton Hall University, Assumption specializes in theological studies and the liberal arts. It is the last remaining sisters' college, or college primarily designed to educate nuns, in the United States. [5] [6]
The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose members are commonly known as the Loreto Sisters, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women dedicated to education founded in Saint-Omer by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609. The congregation takes its name from the Marian shrine at Loreto in Italy where Ward used to pray. Ward was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 December 2009. The Loreto Sisters use the initials I.B.V.M. after their names.
The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity are a Congregation of Roman Catholic apostolic religious women. The congregation was founded in 1869 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, later part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. The sisters have active apostolates in education, health care, spiritual direction, and other community ministries. As of 2021, there are 188 sisters in the community. The FSCC is a member of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, an organization which represents women religious in the United States.
The Felician Sisters, officially known as the Congregation of Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi (CSSF), is a religious institute of pontifical right whose members profess public vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and follow the evangelical way of life in common. This active-contemplative religious institute was founded in Warsaw, Poland, in 1855, by Sophia Truszkowska, and named for a shrine of St. Felix, a 16th-century Capuchin saint especially devoted to children.
Hermann von Mallinckrodt was a German parliamentarian from the Province of Westphalia.
The Diocese of Paterson is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the United States that encompasses Passaic, Morris, and Sussex counties in northern New Jersey. Most of this territory lies to the west of the episcopal see in Paterson. As of 2013, there were 166 active diocesan priests, 96 retired priests, 124 religious priests, 136 permanent deacons, 19 retired permanent deacons, 178 male religious and 677 female religious to serve 426,000 Catholics out of a total population of 1,143,500, ranking it 44th in Catholic population among dioceses in the United States. The patrons of the diocese are St. Patrick and St. John the Baptist, and its proper feasts are the Feast of St. Patrick, the Nativity of John the Baptist, the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral church. The diocese is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Newark, and is part of Region III of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (Spanish: Religiosas de la Beata Virgen María, abbreviated RVM, is a Roman Catholic centralized religious institute of consecrated life of Pontifical Right for women founded in Manila in 1684 by the Filipina Venerable Mother Ignacia del Espíritu Santo.
The Order of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament is a Catholic religious order founded in the early part of the seventeenth century by Jeanne Chezard de Matel.
Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, SC was an American Ruthenian Catholic Sister of Charity who was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2014. The beatification ceremony was the first to take place in the United States, being held in Newark, New Jersey.
The Third Order of Saint Francis is a third order in the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi.
The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (SBS) are a Catholic order of religious sisters in the United States. They were founded in 1891 by Katharine Drexel as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People.
The Little Sisters of the Assumption is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in France in 1865 by Antoinette Fage (1824–1883) and Father Etienne Pernet. The declared work of the congregation is the nursing of the sick poor in their own homes. This labour they perform gratuitously and without distinction of creed.
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul were founded on May 11, 1849, when the four founding Sisters of Charity arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from New York City; this has been designated a National Historic Event.
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.
The Third Order of Saint Dominic, also referred to as the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic or Lay Dominicans since 1972, is a Catholic third order which is part of the Dominican Order.
Pauline Von Mallinckrodt, SCC was a German Roman Catholic professed religious and the foundress of the Sisters of Christian Charity. Born into an aristocratic household as the daughter of a Lutheran father and Catholic mother, from her adolescence she began to tend to the blind and sick. This venture expanded into what became a religious congregation which spread at a rapid pace; she herself traveled to a range of places to oversee its growth and development.
Konrad Martin was a Catholic Bishop of Paderborn.
The Poor Brothers of the Seraphic St. Francis, abbreviated C.F.P. are a Catholic lay religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis, instituted for charitable work among orphan boys and for youth education. They commonly also use the title of Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis.
The Religious of Jesus and Mary, abbreviated as R.J.M., form a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women dedicated to the education and service of the poor. It was founded at Lyon, France, in October 1818, by Claudine Thévenet.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Sisters of Christian Charity". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.