The Sisterhood in America
...re the origins of Sisterhood as we know it today. Early religious communities were dedicated to prayer and performing charitable works. St. Patrick founded such a community in 409AD as did Bishop Caesar in Arles, France in 525AD. Religious communities for women also flourished in England, Spain and Italy. They usually followed either the Augustinian rule or the Benedictine rule. St. Benedict (480-546) founded the first permanent monastery in Italy. His rules governing monasticism are still the primary rule of monasticism in the West. He adapted his rule for women at the suggestion of his twin sister, St. Scolastica who started the Second Order of St. Benedict, a term that denotes the female branch of a monastic order and whose members are called “nuns.” It was not until 1535 with the founding of the Ursulines by St. Angela Merici, that communities of women dedicated themselves to the education of youth. The evolution of these communities in Europe continued through the Middle Ages and into the twenty-first century. August 1727 is a historic date in the history of the Sisterhood in America. A year earlier, Rev. Father Ignatius de Beaubois, head of the Jesuit settlement in Louisiana, traveled to the Ursuline convent in Rouen, France to secure volunteers for the settlement in Louisiana. In 1727 nine Ursuline sisters answered his plea and established a small community in New Orleans. Within a short time the sisters opened a boarding school, a day school, an orphanage and later a hospital. In 1790, Rev. John Carroll, the Superior of the American clergy which at that time numbered thirty priests in a territory about the size of the Untied States, was appointed Bishop of Baltimore. His brother, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. One of Rev. Carroll’s first acts was to invite the Carmelites to his diocese to ”pray for the American Missions.” Of the small group that arrived, two were Americans who had left Maryland to join the order in Belgium. On July 2, 1790 they arrived in New York and immediately set out for Maryland. The Discalced Carmelite sisters, established at Fort Tobacco, Maryland were the first Catholic women’s religious institution in the United States to be dedicated to prayer and meditation. It is interesting to note that the first two religious congregations of women established in the United States represented two different forms of religious life; the active (Ursulines) and the contemplative (Carmelites). During the 18th century, missionaries from European countries traveled to religious communities in America that had appealed for help. Women arrived from Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany and assisted their American counterparts in operating schools and caring for the sick and disabled. First Order of Black Sisters On July 2, 1829 four black sisters made their first professions of vows and founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in the State of Maryland. Comprised mostly of educated black and mulatto Haitians who had been forced to emigrate because of political upheavals in their native land, these sisters were dedicated to the education and religious instruction of young black girls. They were the first congregation of black sisters and the ninth orde...