Sisters of Mercy (religious institute)

Formation: 1831

Founder: Catherine Elizabeth McAuley

The Sisters of Mercy, or more accurately, the Religious Sisters of Mercy (RSM) is a Roman Catholic religious order that is dedicated to social service. Since the founding of the congregation the Sisters of Mercy have concentrated on Apostolic works such as education, especially for the poor, hospital care, home care for the ill and elderly, and care and housing for orphans.

Since the founding of the order in 1831, the Sisters of Mercy have concentrated on serving the disadvantaged in any way they can. According to the order’s website, the religious in the order have a clear objective: "Inspired by the Gospel and by the example of our founder Catherine McAuley, we Sisters of Mercy envision a just world for people who are poor, sick and uneducated. We commit to serving, advocating for and praying with those in need around the world" ("What We Do" para. 1).

History

Catherine Elizabeth McAuley inherited a substantial amount of money in 1822 and immediately set about providing food and clothing to needy people in Dublin, Ireland. She also devised a system for educating impoverished girls and spent time and money on care for the sick.

She enlisted the help of like-minded wealthy women, and by 1827, McAuley opened a charitable center in Dublin. Her goal was to provide a place of shelter and education for poor women and girls, staffed by women like herself—socially conscious lay members of the Roman Catholic Church.

However, her House of Mercy encountered some local opposition because such charitable institutions were within the purview of nuns, not the laity. The concern was that lay social workers could marry or lose interest, and the people who needed ongoing care would be left without it. McAuley had not planned to create a religious congregation and at age 50 in 1827 had not aspired to a religious life, but she gave in to the demands of the Archbishop of Dublin. Near the end of 1831 McAuley and two other women took the traditional novitiate vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and they added one more: service. The three were the first Sisters of Mercy. The religious order considers the day they took their vows, December 12, 1831, the day that their religious community was founded. The rule of the Sisters of Mercy was confirmed by Pope Gregory XVI in June, 1941.

McAuley was now known as Sister Mary Catherine. She became the first superior of the congregation and remained in that position until she died in 1841. During that decade she expanded the congregation into fourteen separate convents in England and Ireland. They also began to operate hospitals almost immediately. A cholera epidemic had stricken Dublin in 1832, and Sister Mary Catherine agreed to staff a hospital to care for victims.

Two years after Sister Mary Catherine’s death the first Sisters of Mercy arrived in the United States, opening their first facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Seven nuns were appointed to the mission. In 1844 they opened a parochial school attached to the cathedral in Pittsburgh. In 1845 they began a boarding school, and in 1846 they opened an orphanage. On New Year’s Day in 1847 they opened the first hospital in western Pennsylvania. This was the energetic pattern followed by the Sisters of Mercy throughout the world.

Their mission attracted many new members, and by 1854 Sisters of Mercy had settled in New York City, Chicago, Providence, Little Rock, and San Francisco. They established schools and hospitals for the poor as they spread across the country. Simultaneously they founded congregations in Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and throughout the British Isles. In following decades and into the twentieth century the Sisters of Mercy spread throughout the world. Their congregations have added hospitals, schools, and orphanages in South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

In 1992 leaders from a wide range of Sisters of Mercy congregations formed the Mercy International Association with the goal of collaboration and cooperation among the disparate congregations worldwide. It offers support and organization for the far-flung Sisters of Mercy ministries and the various charitable organizations with which they often collaborate.

For example, the Sisters of Mercy in Australia and Papua New Guinea previously included seventeen independent congregations. Late in 2011, fourteen of those congregations decided to combine into a single congregation of about 920 sisters.

In the United States at the same time there were about 4,700 sisters and nearly 105,000 students in parochial schools run by them. Almost 4,000 orphans and children were being cared for in sixty-seven Sisters of Mercy institutions while almost ten thousand pupils attended Sisters of Mercy high schools and colleges. The Sisters also run fifty-three charity hospitals.

Beliefs & Practices

The approximately nine thousand Sisters of Mercy are an international community with shared values that drive their shared purpose. They take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—the evangelical counsels vowed by all in religious life—but the Sisters of Mercy add a fourth vow to serve those in need. This vow means the Sisters of Mercy are engaged in the temporal world, serving those who suffer from poverty, illness, and lack of education. The Sisters teach, provide medical care, and are engaged in community activities.

They describe themselves as rooting their daily lives in four core values: spirituality, community, service, and social justice. They describe their lives as a combination of contemplation and action, prayer, and service. They "see Jesus in the most marginalized people" and vow "to perform works of Mercy that alleviate suffering" ("About Us" para. 5). They commit their lives to attempting to answer unmet needs in the ancient Roman Catholic tradition of spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

The spiritual works of mercy are: instruct the ignorant; counsel the doubtful; admonish the sinner; bear wrongs patiently; forgive offenses willingly; comfort the afflicted; and pray for the living and the dead.

The corporal works of mercy are: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; welcome the stranger; visit the sick; visit the imprisoned; and bury the dead ("About Us" para. 11).

Bibliography

"About Us: Mission & Values." Sisters of Mercy. Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, 2016. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <http://www.sistersofmercy.org/about-us/mission-values/>.

Connolly, Mary Beth Fraser. Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community. New York: Fordham, 2014. Print.

Doyle, Mary Katherine. Like a Tree by Running Water: The Story of Mary Baptist Russell, California’s First Sister of Mercy. Grass Valley: Blue Dolphin, 2004. Print

Healy, Kathleen. Sisters of Mercy: Spirituality in America, 1843–1900. Mahwah: Paulist, 1992. Print.

Rapley, Elizabeth. The Lord as Their Portion: The Story of the Religious Orders and How They Shaped Our World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. Print.

Sisters of Mercy. Leaves From the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy in Three Volumes: Ireland. II. England, Scotland and the Colonies. III. America. Vol. 1. Charleston: Nabu, 2010. Print.

Sullivan, Mary C. The Path of Mercy: The Life of Catherine McAuley. Washington: Catholic University of America, 2012. Print.

Sullivan, Wilma. Sister of Mercy: From Serving God to Knowing Him. Pigeon Forge: Grace Notebook, 2015. Electronic.

"What We Do: Social Justice Advocacy." Sisters of Mercy. Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, 2016. Web. 20 January 2016. <http://www.sistersofmercy.org/what-we-do/social-justice-advocacy/>.