Maria Kaupas

Kaupas was born as Casimira Kaupas in Ramygala, Russian Empire. At the age of 17, she emigrated to the United States, where she settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to work as a housekeeper for her brother, Anthony Kaupas, who was pastor of St. Joseph Parish there.^[3] While there, she had her first contact with religious sisters and was attracted by their way of life. She also became aware of her countrymen's struggle due to the language barrier, especially in their spiritual life.^[3]

Overcome by homesickness, Kaupas returned to Lithuania in 1901, but she kept seeking to determine where her call in life was. She resolved to enter a teaching religious congregation, and to commit especially to the care of the Lithuanian immigrants in America.^[3] Kaupas' brother soon informed her that the Lithuanian clergy in the United States sought to establish a new community of religious sisters dedicated to teaching the youth of their community in a religious setting and preserving their native language and customs. She was asked to lead this new venture, and she began her studies toward this end with the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross in Switzerland in October 1902. Although the Priests Council disbanded in 1904, Kaupas determined nonetheless to pursue the idea of a new religious congregation.^[3]

In 1905 Jeremiah F. Shanahan, Bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, agreed to sponsor this new congregation. M. Cyril accepted Kaupas and two companions into the novitiate of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, based in Scranton, for their preparation. At her investiture, she received the religious name Maria. On August 29, 1907, Kaupas made her profession of religious vows, and the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Casimir was founded.^[3]

The sisters immediately began to work in the parochial schools of the region. In 1911, they established their motherhouse in Chicago, where there was a large Lithuanian population. They began to staff schools in Lithuanian parishes of the city. Over time, sisters were sent to teach in many parishes across the United States, Lithuanian and non-Lithuanian. Their service also came to include home missions in New Mexico. In 1928, the Sisters of St. Casimir began their health care ministry with Holy Cross Hospital's opening in Chicago.^[3]

Kaupas founded a school at Villa Joseph Marie in Holland, Pennsylvania. This school remains thriving to this day. It is situated on beautiful acres of property at the corner of Holland and middle Holland Road. It has roughly under 400 students and 40 faculty members. It has a large number of elective opportunities, clubs, and classes available. Students often attend highly selective universities post VJMHS graduation.

Kaupas died in Chicago, Illinois, on April 17, 1940.^[4] In 2010, she was found to have lived a life of heroic virtue by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and was declared venerable.^[5]

Her vocation joined fidelity to the Catholic Church, the spiritual heritage of Lithuania, education, community life, and practical adaptation to immigrant conditions. She insisted that professional preparation and religious formation support one another, while the congregation's institutions were built through the labor of many sisters, parishioners, clergy, parents, students, patients, and donors. Ethnic solidarity served evangelization and human dignity rather than isolation from the wider Church. This Christian witness points toward Christ and the universal call to holiness. Remembering it truthfully means neither making suffering desirable nor treating every choice, opinion, or later retelling as if the Catholic Church had canonized it.

Immigrant institutions also carried tensions involving language, assimilation, authority, finance, and expectations placed upon women religious. Responsible history neither idealizes every school and hospital decision nor measures the founders solely by later assumptions. The heroic-virtue judgment addresses Kaupas's Christian life; it does not canonize every administrative practice, guarantee the accuracy of all recollections, or make ethnic identity itself a cause status. A sound account distinguishes documented events, contemporary testimony, and the Church's later judgment. That discipline protects both historical truth and authentic devotion, especially where illness, violence, politics, colonial power, or disputed memories are involved.