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School Sisters of Notre Dame

From Catholicism Wiki
Abbreviation SSND
Established 1833
Founder Karolina Gerhardinger
Location(s) 95 Via della Stazione Aurelia
Rome, Italy
Region served World-wide, 34 countries
Members 3,000+
Foundress Theresa Gerhardinger
Main organ Visions
Affiliations Roman Catholic
Website gerhardinger.org

School Sisters of Notre Dame is a worldwide religious institute of Catholic sisters founded in Bavaria in 1833 and devoted to primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Their life in mission centers on prayer, community life and ministry. They serve as teachers, lawyers, accountants, nurses, administrators,[1] therapists, social workers, pastoral ministers, social justice advocates and more.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame are known by the abbreviation "SSND" and are not to be confused with another teaching order, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SNDdeN), which was founded in France.

Founding and growth

The School Sisters of Notre Dame developed from the Canonesses of Saint-Augustin of the Notre-Dame Congregation, founded by Peter Fourier and Alix Le Clerc in the Duchy of Lorraine in 1597 for the free education of poor girls. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, several convents of the congregation were established in Germany.[2]

Karolina Gerhardinger commenced her training as a lay teacher at the local monastery of the Canonesses Regular of Notre Dame in Ratisbon. She developed her skills as a teacher at the monastery until it—like all monastic communities—was closed in 1809 after the Napoleonic army had occupied Bavaria. By 1812 she had secured a teaching accreditation and began teaching at a girls school in Regensburg. In 1815 she asked Bishop of Regensburg, Georg Michael Wittmann, for guidance on entering the religious life, although she was unable to pursue this religious calling at that time. However, she continued to teach at the school from 1816 until 1833.[3]

The congregation was founded in Bavaria in 1833, during a time of poverty and illiteracy under Bishop Wittmann of Ratisbon and Father Job of Vienna. While retaining the essential features of the rule and constitutions given by Peter Fourier, they widened the scope of the Sisters' educational work. Its founder Karolina Gerhardinger, known by the religious name of Mary Theresa of Jesus, formed a community with two other women in Neunburg vorm Wald to teach the poor.[2]

In 1839 they removed to a suburb of Munich, and in 1843, into a former Poor Clare convent, built in 1284 and situated within the city limits.[2] In 1847, Blessed Theresa and five companion sisters traveled to the United States to aid German immigrants, especially girls and women. That year the sisters staffed schools in three German parishes in Baltimore, Maryland: St. James, St. Michael, and St. Alphonsus, as well as opened the Institute of Notre Dame, a private school for German girls. Eventually, the congregation spread across the United States and into Canada, ultimately forming eight North American Provinces.

Governance

The original rule of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, approved by Pope Pius IX in 1865, allowed Blessed Theresa and her successors, instead of local bishops, to govern the congregation. The main motherhouse was moved from Neunburg vorm Wald to Munich in 1843 and remained there until the 1950s. Today, the Generalate of the Congregation can be found in Rome, Italy.

Provinces

The global congregation is currently divided into provinces, each with their own provincial council and province-level governance.[4]

  • Province of Africa
  • Atlantic-Midwest Province
  • Bavarian Province (absorbed two other provinces as sub-districts in February 2022)
    • District of Austria-Italy
    • District of Czechoslovakia
  • Central Pacific Province
  • Hungarian Province
  • Province of Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Polish Province
  • Slovenian Province

Works

Much of their work has been in schools,[5] but the curriculum vitae of a group of jubilarians in 2014, from a province based in St. Louis, showed a wide variety of assignments: spiritual direction, retreats, adult basic education, RCIA programs, pastoral care among Hispanics, in hospitals, and among the disadvantaged,[6] language interpreting, outreach to native Americans and to migrants (also founding an Immigrant and Refugee Women's Program), and on mission to Honduras, Hungary, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Japan.[7] Empowering underserved women has been a special effort of theirs.[8][9] Their involvement in migrant services is evidenced in their hosting at the US-Mexican border a conference for Shalom, an international network for justice, peace, and integrity of creation.[10]

In 2017 more than 3,000 School Sisters of Notre Dame were working in thirty-four countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Africa has come to produce the largest number of vocations.[11]

Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease

Since 1986, 678 members of the congregation in the United States have been participating in Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease, a longitudinal study of aging and Alzheimer's disease. Convent archives have been made available to investigators as a resource on the history of participants. The sisters participated in yearly intellectual and physical tests, including memory tests, basic living assessments (putting on a sweater, pouring a glass of water), mobility, and more. These sisters also agreed to donate their brains to science upon their death.[12][13] These sisters have played an integral role the progressive research of Alzheimer's Disease because of their uniquely similar backgrounds and living habits.[13]

Education

Schools

Asia

  • Notre Dame School, Bandipur, Nepal

Europe

North America

Canada
United States (including territories)

Tertiary institutions

Notable members

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

School Sisters of Notre Dame — A religious community devoted to education. In the United Sates they have conducted parish schools and orphanages in numerous archdioceses and dioceses; they have also operated schools and an orphanage in the Diocese of Hamilton, Canada; an Indian school at Harbor Springs, Michigan; a school for black children at Annapolis; and a deaf-mute institute in Louisiana. Their principal boarding schools are: Baltimore, Maryland; Fort Lee, New Jersey; Quincy, Illinois; Longwood, Chicago; Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin. Of their day and high schools the most prominent are at Baltimore, Quincy, Longwood and Chatawa, Mississippi.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame are a branch of the Congregation of Notre-Dame founded in France, by St. Peter Fourier in 1597. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, several convents of the congregations were established in Germany. The one at Ratisbon was suppressed at the beginning of thenineteenth century, but it was soon restored and remodeled to meet the needs of modern times. Bishop Wittmann of Ratisbon and Father Job of Vienna effected the change. While retaining the essential features of the rule and constitutions given by St. Peter Fourier, they widened the scope of the Sisters' educational work. In 1834 their community consisted of one former pupil of the suppressed congregation, Caroline Gerhardinger, who became first Superior General (Mother Theresa of Jesus), and a few companions. The first convent was in Neunburg vorm Wald, Bavaria. In 1839 they removed to a suburb of Munich, and in 1843, into a former Poor Clare convent, built in 1284, and situated within the city limits. From this motherhouse in the year 1847 six School Sisters of Notre Dame, on the invitation of Bishop O'Connor of Pittsburg, emigrated to America and landed at New York on 31 July. One of the Sisters succumbed to the heat of the season and died at Harrisburg, Pa., on the journey from New York to St. Mary's, Elk Co., Pa., destined to be the foundation-house in America. As St. Mary's was not the place for a permanent location the mother-general successfully negotiated to obtain the Redemptorists convent attached to St. James' Church, Baltimore, Maryland By 3 November, 1847, three schools were opened. The second and last colony of sisters, eleven in number, arrived from Munich, 25 March, 1848, and foundations were made at Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and Buffalo.

On 15 December, 1850, the motherhouse was transferred to Milwaukee, with Mother Mary Caroline Friess as vicar-general of the sisters in America. With money donated by King Louis I of Bavaria, a house was bought; this was absorbed later by Notre Dame Convent on St. Mary's Hill. On 2 January, 1851, St. Mary's parish school was opened and St. Mary's Institute for boarding and day pupils soon afterwards. On 31 July, 1876, owing to its growth and extension, the congregation was divided into two provinces; the Western, with motherhouse at Milwaukee; and the Eastern with motherhouse at Baltimore. A second division of the Western province became necessary, and on 19 March, 1895, the Southern province was formed, with its motherhouse in St. Louis.

Training of Members

To train members for their future life the School Sisters have a candidature and a novitiate. The age for admission into the candidature is sixteen to twenty-seven. After two years' probation and study, the candidate enters the novitiate, and two years later makes temporal vowsand becomes a professed sister. The teaching sisters meet at specified periods and at appointed houses of the order for summer schools and teachers' institutes. The principal houses of the congregation in the Western province are at Elm Grove, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, the home for aged, invalid, and convalescent sisters; at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, founded in 1872, chartered in 1877, owing its origin to the generosity of Hon. John Lawler (died on 24 Feb, 1891) and his son, Thomas C. Lawler, of Dubuque, Iowa; at Longwood, Chicago, Illinois, established and chartered in 1872. In 1903 the Legislature of Illinois granted the academy the right to add a college courses and confer the degrees of A.B. and Ph.B. In the Eastern province at Baltimore, Md., chartered in 1864, charter amended and powers of corporation enlarged in 1896. The sisters began their work in Baltimore in 1848; owing to the growth of their academy, more commodious quarters became necessary and school, Notre Dame of Maryland, was transferred in 1873 to a magnificent estate of seventy acres obtained in the suburbs. To meet the continual demand for a more extensive curriculum for women, the sisters of the convent applied in January, 1896, to the State for the power of conferring academic degrees; this was granted by an Act of the Legislature, 2 April, 1896, and the convent opened a college with courses leading to the baccalaureate, an academy to prepare students for the college, and a grammar and primary department. There is a convent at Fort Lee on the Palisades of the Hudson, Bergen County, N.J. where a residence was purchased by the sisters on 2 October, 1879, the school being opened on 21 November, 1879, and chartered in June, 1890. In the Southern province the principal schools are at Quincy, Illinois, founded on 28 December, 1859, as a parochial school, the academy opened in September, 1867; at Chatawa, Mississippi, founded on 15 October, 1874, a deaf-mute institution; at Chincuba, La., founded by Canon Mignot, 1 October, 1890, given in charge of the sisters on 25 September, 1892. Most prominent among the sisters in America was Mother M. Caroline Friess, who died on 22 July, 1892, after being superioress of the congregation for forty-two years. She was born near Paris, on 24 August, 1824, and was called at baptism by the name of Josephine. As a child she was brought to Eichstadt, Bavaria, under the tutelage of her uncle, Msgr. Michael Friess. Even when only a novice she was given charge of very important schools in Munich. She was one of the first to volunteer for the missionary work in the New World, and emigrated to America in 1847. It soon became evident that it was Sister Caroline who was to develop the young congregation. She was appointed vicar of the mother-general in America and later on elected at the first commissary-general. Under her direction from four members in 1847, the sisterhood grew to two thousand in 1892. Her life was written by Msgr. P.M. Abbelen. Mother M. Clara Heuck was the third commissary-general. When the Eastern province was established in 1876 Sister M. Clara was appointed as novice mistress. Soon she became the superioress in Baltimore and the second mother provincial in the East, which position she held for three terms, after which she was elected commissary-general at Milwaukee on 13 May, 1899. She died at Milwaukee on 4 August, 1905, aged sixty-two.

References

  1. Back to citation "Board of Directors & Administrators - The Sarah Community". The Sarah Community. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Josephine, Sister Mary. "School Sisters of Notre Dame." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 2 March 2019
  3. Back to citation Borrelli, Antonio. "Blessed Maria Teresa of Jesus (Carolina Gerhardinger)". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  4. Back to citation "Provinces". SSND congregational website. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
  5. Back to citation "School Sisters of Notre Dame being honored for 155 years of service in Quincy". Herald-Whig. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  6. Back to citation "School Sisters of Notre Dame staff 'oasis' in North Little Rock - Arkansas Catholic - October 18, 2008". Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  7. Back to citation "JUBILARIANS: School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) | St. Louis Review". stlouisreview.com. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  8. Back to citation "SSND Educational Center". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  9. Back to citation "SSNDEC Woodhaven on NY1 News - SSND Educational Center". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  10. Back to citation Dispatch, Aaliyah Montoya For the Douglas. "Douglas School Sisters of Notre Dame Host International SHALOM Representatives". Douglas Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  11. Back to citation Ojanpa, Brian. "School Sisters of Notre Dame: We're not going away". Mankato Free Press. Retrieved 2017-03-18; 501creative inc. "Reception to the African Novitiate | School Sisters of Notre Dame". www.ssnd.org. Archived from the original on 2017-03-19. Retrieved 2017-03-18; "School Sisters of Notre Dame - Africa". School Sisters of Notre Dame - Africa. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  12. Back to citation "Educating in many forms: School Sisters of Notre Dame committed to long-term Alzheimer's disease study". Global Sisters Report. July 6, 2015. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
  13. Back to citation occurrence 13.0 Back to citation occurrence 13.1 Snowdon, David A. (2002). Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives. New York, New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-38092-3.
  14. Back to citation "Remains of 300 nuns to be exhumed from Waterdown convent cemetery". Toronto Star. 10 July 2019.
  15. Back to citation "Kyoto Notre Dame Women's University to Close Amid Enrollment Decline". newsonjapan.com. Retrieved 2025-09-23.

Bibliography

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