External links
| Authority control databases: National |
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| Formation | 1849 |
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| Type | Women's religious order |
| Legal status | Active |
| Headquarters | Wisconsin |
Director | Sister Joanne Schatzlein, osf |
The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi is a Catholic religious congregation for women founded in 1849. The motherhouse is in St. Francis, Wisconsin, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The Sisters share their original founders with daughter congregations the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist.
On March 13, 1849, six women and five men, lay third-order Franciscans from Ettenbeuren, Bavaria, along with Father Francis Anthony Keppeler and Father Mathias Steiger, of the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption, set sail for America at the request of Bishop John Henni to the newly organized diocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [1]
It was agreed that the brothers and sisters would live in separate areas of the house. One married man and a married woman would be in charge of domestic and external affairs of the house and the others would be obedient to them. It was also determined that the group would care for two teachers and offer free board and lodging to poor children who lived too far from the mission.
Arriving on the Hermann, the group reached New York on April 13, 1849. On May 28, Foundation Day, the Brothers and Sisters presented themselves to Bishop Henni. He advised them to settle at the southern tip of Milwaukee Bay, approximately four miles from the heart of the city in an area known as Nojoshing. [1] The title deed dated June 11, 1849, represented the 35.67 acres of virgin forest purchased for $1,000 from Henry and Eva Gross. An additional four acres were purchased from James S. and Elizabeth McFadden for $100.
Construction began on a convent – a square, one-story frame building 16 feet high with an enclosed 20-by-20-yard courtyard with a well in the center. Separate housing for the Brothers would also be built. Meanwhile, they lived in a log house, 16 feet long and 10 feet wide with an altar, kitchen, and fireplace. The Brothers and Sisters lived in boarding huts nearby. [2] In 1856 Bishop Henni asked the Sisters to help at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, built for German-speaking aspirants to the priesthood. In 1871 the Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis was established in La Crosse, Wisconsin. [1]
In 1873, Mother Antonia, believing that Seminary work was not an appropriate ministry for her sisters, asked the sisters in Milwaukee to discontinue that work. Thirty-seven sisters chose to remain in Seminary ministry. They became the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi. [3] The community in La Crosse separated and became known as the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. [4]
The motherhouse is located on the shores of Lake Michigan in St. Francis (Milwaukee), Wisconsin. St. Mary’s Academy closed in 1991. A new convent was built on the site, with the old Motherhouse to be demolished. Much of the stained glass, doors, and paintings were transferred to the new building. [5]
The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, Milwaukee, are the founders and corporate sponsors of Cardinal Stritch University, established in 1937 as St. Clare's College, a teacher-training school for the Sisters. Special education became a major area of focus with the establishment of three residential facilities, St. Coletta Schools (Jefferson, Wisconsin, Palos Park, Illinois, and Hanover, Massachusetts, the latter now called the Cardinal Cushing Centers), and two day schools (Milwaukee and Braintree, Massachusetts). In 1989, they opened Juniper and Canticle Courts, two apartment complexes for the elderly. [3] [6]
On October 4, 2001, the Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore merged with the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi. As of 2016 there are about 340 sisters in the community.
Poverello Creations is an expansion of "Poverello Prints", a small greeting card project to showcase sister artists, that helps to support the mission of the sisters. [7]
| Authority control databases: National |
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Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. He was inspired to lead a Christian life of poverty as a beggar and itinerant preacher. One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228. He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots that symbolize the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in southeast Wisconsin in the United States.
Eucharistic adoration is a Eucharistic devotional practice primarily in Western Catholicism, but also to a lesser extent in certain Lutheran and Anglican traditions, in which the Blessed Sacrament is adored by the faithful. This practice may occur either when the Eucharist is exposed, or when it is not publicly viewable because it is reserved in a place such as a church tabernacle.
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.
John Joseph Paul was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as an auxiliary bishop and bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin from 1977 to 1994
The Roman Catholic Diocese of La Crosse is a Latin Church diocese in west-central Wisconsin in the United States. The metropolitan for the diocese is the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The mother church is the Cathedral of Saint Joseph the Workman in La Crosse.
The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women whose motherhouse, St. Rose of Viterbo Convent, is in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the Diocese of La Crosse. The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration founded Viterbo University and staffed Aquinas High School in La Crosse. The congregation traces its roots to 1849.
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George is a Roman Catholic Congregation of consecrated women whose spirituality is derived from St. Francis of Assisi. Mother M. Anselma Bopp and Father John Gerard Dall founded the Order in Thuine, Germany, in 1869. The Order expanded to the U.S. in 1923 with the founding of a Provincialate and Novitiate in Alton, Illinois, which continues to be the location of the Provincial House. They are also located in other areas of Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin, as well as on missions in Brazil and Cuba.
Michael Heiss was a German-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the first bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin (1868–1880) and the second archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in Wisconsin (1881–1890).
Kilian Caspar Flasch was a German-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin from 1881 until his death in 1891.
William Richard Griffin was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
The Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration is a papal congregation of the Roman Catholic Church, founded on July 20, 1863, by Mother Maria Theresia Bonzel in Olpe, Germany. In 1875, they opened St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette, Indiana; now part of the Franciscan Health healthcare system. In 1890 they founded Saint Francis Normal School, a teacher training school; which is now the University of Saint Francis (Indiana).
The Institute of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist (FSE) is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women. The motherhouse is in Meriden, Connecticut, in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis (SSJ-TOSF) is a Roman Catholic Franciscan religious congregation for women. The Congregation was established in 1901. Their motherhouse was in Stevens Point, Wisconsin in the Diocese of La Crosse.
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.
St. Rose of Viterbo Convent is the motherhouse of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, an American religious congregation, which is located in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The convent is dedicated to Rose of Viterbo, a 13th-century Franciscan tertiary who was a noted mystic and street preacher in Italy who died while still a teenager.
Tadeusz Żukotyński was a Polish count, professor, and painter.
Paul Francis Tanner was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1968 to 1979.
