Neighbors and Missionaries A History of the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine

by McGuinness, Margaret M.

• ISBN13: 9780823239870
• ISBN10: 082323987X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-01
• Publisher: Fordham University Press

Summary

The engaging story of a unique community of women religious and their ministry in service to the poor and Catholic education, which began just over 100 years ago. The Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine community was founded in 1910 by Marion Gurney, who adopted the religious name Mother Marianne of Jesus. A graduate of Wellesley College and a convert to Catholicism, Gurney had served as head resident at St. Rose's Settlement, the first Catholic settlement house in New York City. She founded the Sisters of Christian Doctrine when other communities of women religious appeared uninterested in a ministry of settlement work combined with religious education programs for children attending public schools. The community established two settlement houses in New York City Madonna House on the Lower East Side in 1910, followed by Ave Maria House in the Bronx in 1930. Alongside their classes in religious education and preparing children and adults to receive the sacraments, the sisters distributed food and clothing, operated a bread line, and helped their neighbors in emergencies. In 1940 Mother Marianne and her sisters began their first major mission outside New York when they adapted the model of the urban Catholic social settlement to rural South Carolina. They also served at a number of parishes, including several in South Carolina and Florida, where they ministered to both black and white Catholics. In Neighbors and Missionaries Margaret M. McGuinness, who was given full access to the Archives of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine, traces in fascinating detail the history of the congregation, from the inspiring story of its founder and the community's mission to provide material and spiritual support to their Catholic neighbors, to the changes and challenges of the latter half of the twentieth century. By 1960, settlement houses had been replaced by other forms of social welfare and the lives and work of American women religious were undergoing a dramatic change. McGuinness explores how the Sisters of Christian Doctrine were impacted and how they adapted their own lives and work to reflect the transformations taking place in the Church and society. Neighbors and Missionaries examines a distinctive community of women religious whose primary focus was neither teaching nor nursing/hospital administration. The choice of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to live among the poor and to serve where other communities were either unwilling or unable demonstrates that women religious in the United States served in many different capacities as they contributed to the life and work of the American Catholic Church.

Author Biography

Margaret M. McGuinness is Professor of Religion at La Salle University, Philadelphia, and co-editor of The Catholic Studies Reader (Fordham), as well as the Journal of American Catholic Studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
American Women Religious and the Sisters of Christian Doctrine	p. 2
The Catholic Church, the Poor, and Catholic Social Settlements	p. 5
The Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine	p. 8
Writing the History of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine	p. 12
From Wellesley College to the Lower East Side	p. 18
Education for Service	p. 19
A Church Settlement	p. 23
A Catholic Settlement in New York City	p. 28
A Training School for Catechists	p. 33
A New Community	p. 37
Fighting to Save the City of New York	p. 46
A Catholic Social Settlement on the Lower East Side	p. 48
Madonna House	p. 49
Conflict with Clerical Authority	p. 52
Forming Faithful Citizens	p. 57
Ministering to Veterans	p. 61
Not Just Italians	p. 63
Neighbors and Teachers	p. 68
Growing Pains	p. 70
A Motherhouse and a Second Settlement	p. 73
Hard Times	p. 78
Settlement Work and the Second World War	p. 87
The Closing of the Settlement Houses	p. 92
Settlements Go South	p. 98
A New Foundation	p. 100
Staying Connected	p. 104
A Southern Settlement	p. 106
Growing Friendships	p. 109
Valley Catholics	p. 112
Maintaining the Mission	p. 114
A Problem of Numbers	p. 116
More than Settlement Houses	p. 122
Parish Ministry in the South	p. 122
Northern Apostolates	p. 139
Changes in Ministry	p. 145
Changes and Continuities	p. 147
Adjusting to the Loss of Mother Marianne	p. 149
Moving Forward	p. 152
Responding to Transformations	p. 155
Challenging Times	p. 162
Coming toward the End of a Century	p. 165
Epilogue	p. 169
Notes	p. 177
Selected Bibliography	p. 213
Index	p. 221
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