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 sentiment 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]
Bishop John Neumann had asked Pope Pius IX for permission to bring German Dominican Sisters to Philadelphia but was advised by the Pope to establish a congregation of Franciscan Sisters instead. The new religious community was founded in April 1855 with Bachmann, her sister, Barbara Boll; and Anna Dorn, a Secular Franciscan Order residing at the hospice. [3] Bachmann was named superior and given the name Sister Mary Francis. Their rosary 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 convents. In December 1860, the congregation opened its first hospital, St. Mary's in Philadelphia. In 1896, the Motherhouse was located to Glen Riddle, Pennsylvania, and they became familiarly known as "the Glen Riddle Franciscans". [3]
St. James' Protectory in Reybold, Delaware was established by Bishop Thomas Albert Andrew Becker of Wilmington, Delaware, 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 community remained on staff until 1966.
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.
In 1938, the sisters founded the Catholic High School of Baltimore; they continue to sponsor the school. [8] 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 1976, the school was turned over to the Arapaho. The sisters continued to serve at the mission until 1981. [9] In October 1890 the sisters opened St. Joseph Orphanage in Spokane, Washington. By the turn of the century, there were nearly 800 sisters serving in 88 missions in 19 dioceses. [10] The community lost eight sisters and a candidate during the 1918 influenza pandemic. [11]
At their height in 1958, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia numbered 1,600 sisters working in schools, hospitals, and in social services. [12]
Capuchin Sisters of the Infant Jesus was founded in 1911 by Angela Clara Pesce to serve the Italian-speaking population of New Jersey, where they ran schools. With their motherhouse in Ringwood, New Jersey, they became known as the Franciscan Sisters of Ringwood (FSR).
In 1965, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia founded Our Lady of Angels College in Aston Township, Pennsylvania. In 1980, the name was changed to Neumann College in 1980 in honor of Saint John Neumann, and became Neumann University in 2009. [13] In the summer of 2021, the University entered into an agreement to purchase the contiguous Our Lady of Angels Motherhouse for dormitory space. Some 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. [12] [14] The retired sisters at Assisi House make sandwiches for the poor and homeless of Philadelphia. [15]
In the 1970s, St. Joseph Orphanage 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 [16] until it too closed in 2016 due to financial considerations.
In 2003, the community merged with the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. [17] [18]
The Sisters of St. Francis, are a co-sponsor, along with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Neumann University, and St. Katherine Drexel Parish, of Drexel Neumann Academy in Chester, Pennsylvania. [19]
As of 2022 the congregation includes about 355 sisters in 19 U.S. states, Ireland, and Africa. [12] 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 in Aston Township, Pennsylvania. There is also a program called "Franciscan Companions" for members of the laity to participate in the congregation's 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. [20] In 2007, all three merged to form the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities. [21] [22]
St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma, Washington was established in 1891; it is now St. Joseph Medical Center, a Level II trauma center. [23]
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 heiress, philanthropist, religious sister, and educator. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order serving Black and Indigenous Americans.
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.
Neumann University is a private Roman Catholic liberal arts college 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 Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, most often known as the Sisters of Charity of New York, is a religious congregation of sisters in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated in particular to the service of the poor. The motherhouse is located at Mt. St. Vincent in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. They were founded by Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1809.
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 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 School Sisters of St. Francis are an international religious congregation of Catholic sisters, part of the Third Order of Saint Francis, founded in 1874 in New Cassel, Wisconsin. The congregation’s mission covers the United States, Europe, Latin America and India.
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 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 People of Color.
The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Roman Catholic female religious congregation, founded in 1880 by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. Their aim is to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart by means of spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The sisters conduct homes for the aged and the sick, orphanages, industrial schools, sewing classes; they visit hospitals and prisons, and give religious instruction in their convents, which are open to women desirous of making retreats. The congregation operates in 15 countries on 6 continents, coordinated by its motherhouse in Rome.
Mother Bridget Sequeira, F.M.C.K., was a Pakistani-Indian Franciscan religious sister who founded the Franciscan Missionaries of Christ the King, a missionary religious congregation for women, in Karachi, Pakistan, then India. It is the only Catholic religious institute for women to have been founded for women in that nation. It is currently headquartered in Goa, India.
The congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, with its motherhouse at St. Elizabeth's Motherhouse, Allegany, New York, was founded in 1859 by the Very Rev. Father Pamfilo of Magliano, O.F.M.
The Franciscan Hospitaller Sisters of the Immaculate Conception are members of a Roman Catholic religious institute of consecrated women, which was founded in Portugal in 1871. They follow the Rule of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. and, as the term “hospitaller” indicates, focus their ministries on a spirit of medical care. Their charism emphasizes hospitality and service under the model of the Good Samaritan. In this congregation, the postnominal initials used after each sister's name is "F.H.I.C."
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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