The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia is an Aston Township, Pennsylvania-based women's religious congregation of the Third Order of Saint Francis founded in 1855 by Maria Anna Boll Bachmann, an immigrant from Bavaria. [1] The congregation is known for its work in education and healthcare.
Maria Anna Boll Bachmann was a widow with four children, whose husband, Anthony, had died of injuries sustained due to anti-immigrant violence fomented by the American Nativist Party in Philadelphia. In the aftermath of her husband's death, Bachmann established a small shop and hostel for immigrant women in her home. [2]
The Bishop of Philadelphia, John Neumann, had asked Pope Pius IX for permission to bring some German Dominican nuns to Philadelphia to educate the girls of his diocese. Instead he was advised by the pope to establish a congregation of Franciscan Sisters. The new religious community was founded in April 1855 with Bachmann, her sister, Barbara Boll, and Anna Dorn, a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis residing at the hostel. [3] Bachmann was named superior and given the religious name of Sister Mary Francis. They adopted the religious habit of a black tunic and veil, with the Franciscan cord and the Franciscan Crown which has seven decades, commemorating the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [4]
The Sisters nursed the sick and poor while supporting themselves by piecework sewing. During a smallpox epidemic in 1858, they continued to care for the sick in their patients’ homes or in their convent. In December 1860, the congregation opened its first hospital, St. Mary's in Philadelphia. In 1896, the Motherhouse was moved to Glen Riddle, Pennsylvania, and they became familiarly known as "the Glen Riddle Franciscans". [3]
St. James' Protectory in Reybold, Delaware, was established by Thomas Albert Andrew Becker, the Bishop of Wilmington, in September 1879 as an orphanage for boys. [5] It was run by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. [6] In 1891 the Sisters were called to Boston to staff St. Francis Home in Roxbury; [7] The congregation staffed the institution until 1966.
In October 1890 the Sisters opened St. Joseph Orphanage in Spokane, Washington. That same year they also began teaching at St. Peter Claver in Baltimore, Maryland. [8]
In 1892, at the request of Katharine Drexel, six Sisters left Philadelphia to staff a school at St. Stephens Mission on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The mission had been established by the Jesuits in 1884.
During the influenza pandemic of 1918, in Baltimore the community lost eight Sisters and a candidate. [8]
In 1939, the congregation opened the Catholic High School of Baltimore in Maryland; they continue to sponsor the school. [9] The school is incorporated as a separate legal entity with a governing board that includes lay women and men and Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.
In 1965, the Sisters founded Our Lady of Angels College in Aston Township, Pennsylvania. In 1980, the name was changed to Neumann College in 1980 in honor of John Neumann, their founder, and became Neumann University in 2009. [10]
In 1976 control of the school at the St. Stephen Mission in Wyoming was turned over to the Arapaho. The Sisters continued to serve at the mission until 1981. [11]
In the 1970s, St. Joseph Orphanage in Spokane became St. Joseph Children’s Home, and ceased operations in 1982 when the state changed its policy to a preference for foster homes. The premises then housed St. Joseph Family Center, offering counseling programs [12] until it too closed in 2016 due to financial considerations.
At the start of the century, there were nearly 800 Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia serving in 88 missions in 19 dioceses. [13] At its height in 1958, the congregation had numbered 1,600 Sisters working in schools, hospitals, and in social services. [14]
In 2003, the Franciscan Sisters of Ringwood (F.S.R.) merged with the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. [15] [16] They had been founded as the Capuchin Sisters of the Infant Jesus in Newark, New Jersey, in 1911 by Angela Clara Pesce to serve the Italian-speaking population of New Jersey, where they ran various schools. Their motherhouse was by then located in Ringwood, New Jersey.
In 2007, the Sisters of St. Francis became a co-sponsor, along with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Neumann University and St. Katherine Drexel Parish to form Drexel Neumann Academy in Chester, Pennsylvania. It replaced St. Katharine Drexel School, which closed in 2005, and was the last Catholic school in the city. [17]
In the summer of 2021, Neumann University entered into an agreement to purchase the contiguous Our Lady of Angels Motherhouse for dormitory space. Some Franciscan Sisters will continue to reside on the premises. The congregation retains the Assisi House retirement convent; Red Hill Farm, a member-supported community farm; and the Franciscan Spiritual Center. [14] [18] The retired sisters at Assisi House make sandwiches for the poor and homeless of Philadelphia. [19] premises. The congregation retains the Assisi House retirement convent; Red Hill Farm, a member-supported community farm; and the Franciscan Spiritual Center. [14] [20]
As of 2022 the congregation includes about 355 sisters in 19 states, as well as in Ireland, and Africa. [14] They serve in a variety of ministries: prayer ministry; parish and diocesan ministry; spiritual and pastoral care; service to the elderly, the homeless, the poor, persons with AIDS, and immigrants and refugees. [7] The motherhouse is currently located in Aston Township, Pennsylvania. There is also a program called "Franciscan Companions" for members of the laity to participate in the congregation's service of prayer and ministry.
The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia was the founding congregation of daughter communities: the Sisters of St Francis of Syracuse (1860) and the Sisters of St. Francis Third Order Regular of Buffalo (Williamsville Franciscans) (1863). [4] The Buffalo community, in turn, founded the Sisters of St. Francis of Millvale.
In November 2003, the latter two merged. [21] In 2007, all three merged to form the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities. [22] [23]
St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma, Washington was established in 1891; it is now St. Joseph Medical Center, a Level II trauma center. [24]
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.
Katharine Drexel, SBS was an American Catholic religious sister, and educator. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious congregation serving Black and Indigenous Americans.
Marianne Cope, OSF, was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Joseph's Hospital in the city, among the first of 50 general hospitals in the country. Known also for her charitable works, in 1883 she relocated with six other sisters to Hawaiʻi to care for persons suffering leprosy on the island of Molokaʻi and aid in developing the medical infrastructure in Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope did not contract the disease.
The Sisters of St. Joseph, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, abbreviated CSJ or SSJ, is a 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.
Neumann University is a private Roman Catholic university in Aston, Pennsylvania. It is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.
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 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. 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 of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women. The congregation was founded in 1877 by Mother Mary Alfred Moes in the Diocese of St. Paul of Minnesota. The motherhouse, which is in Rochester, Minnesota, is called Assisi Heights.
The Franciscan Sisters of Mary is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of religious sisters based in St. Louis, Missouri, noted for its operation of SSM Health Care, a group of some 20 hospitals throughout the Midwestern United States. It was formed in 1987 from the merger of two related congregations that founded many of the hospitals.
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 Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary are a historically Black Catholic congregation of Religious Sisters co-founded by Mary Theodore Williams and Ignatius Lissner, S.M.A., in 1916. They follow the Rule of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. Their primary mission has always been education, primarily of children of the African-American community.
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.
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.
The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Catholic female religious congregation founded in 1880 by Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini. Their aim is to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart by means of spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore were the American members of a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women founded in the London suburb of Mill Hill, England, in 1868. Connected to the Society of Mill Hill Missionaries from the time of their founding, they were committed to serving the needy of the world. Members of the congregation came to the United States in 1881, where they were the first white religious order dedicated to serve the African-American population of Baltimore. The United States Province merged with the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi in 2001 and continue their ministry in Baltimore.
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities was formed in 2004 with the union of three separate congregations: Sisters of St Francis of Syracuse, Sisters of St. Francis of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, and the Sisters of St. Francis Third Order Regular of Buffalo. During the process of the reorganization, the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Divine Child merged with the Williamsville Franciscans in 2003. The Sisters of St. Francis of Millvale merged with the congregation in 2007.
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