Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

File:Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.png
Formation	December 1, 1812
Type	Religious institute
Headquarters	Nazareth, Kentucky
Location	United States, Belize, Botswana, India, Nepal, Kenya
President	Jackulin Jesu
Parent organization	Nazareth Literary & Benevolent Institution
Website	nazareth.org

The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) is an American Catholic order of religious sisters founded in 1812 near Bardstown, Kentucky. There, three young women responded to Bishop John Baptist Mary David's call for assistance in ministering to the needs of the people of the area. The community follows the Rule of Vincent de Paul.

History

The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth was founded in 1812. Mother Catherine Spalding, along with Bishop John Baptist Mary David, are honored together and remembered as co-founders of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.

In 1812, in the newly formed diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, Bishop Benedict Flaget was overwhelmed by the responsibility of providing religious education for the children of Catholic families who had migrated to Kentucky from Maryland after the Revolutionary War. In response to this need, Father John Baptist David, who had recently established St. Thomas Seminary, called for young women willing to devote their lives to the service of the Church. From among a group of six women that responded to the call, nineteen-year-old Catherine Spalding, originally from Maryland, was elected first superior of the Congregation. Mother Catherine guided the young Congregation for forty-five years.

The new community followed the rule of St. Vincent de Paul and their dwelling was named Nazareth. The symbol of the congregation is the pelican feeding its young from its own body. The Sisters' spiritual formation and service to their neighbors steadily expanded on the Kentucky frontier and beyond.

Ministry

Their education ministry began in 1814 when the first school, Nazareth Academy, was opened at the motherhouse near Bardstown. Spalding founded Presentation Academy in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1831. The academy began to grant degrees in 1829.

Since the beginning years of the congregation, SCNs have been involved in a variety of ministries, responding to the needs of the times. In 1832, when Catherine Spalding brought home two orphans left on the wharf in Louisville, their social work ministry began.

In 1833, when cholera struck, SCNs nursed victims of the disease. So began their health care ministry, which continued as the sisters served in military hospitals during the Civil War.

In 1920, the Sisters opened Nazareth College in Louisville, Kentucky's first, four-year, Catholic college for women. The Louisville and Nazareth campuses merged. and in 1969, the school was renamed Spalding College. Two years later, all instructional activity was moved to the Louisville campus. Former dorms on SCN's campus now function as affordable housing for the elderly and disabled. In 1984, Spalding College became Spalding University.

Pastoral ministry later emerged within the congregation as a distinct form of ministry after Vatican II as they followed the call of the Church to respond to the signs of the times.

Modern times

In 2000, the sisters apologized for the slaveholding past and erected a monument in memory of those who had suffered in their bondage.

Founded as a diocesan community, they are now an international congregation, both in ministry and membership. As of 2018, 550 sisters were serving in 20 states in the U.S., in India, Nepal, Botswana, and Belize.

They are committed to six priorities in ministry: promoting peace, promoting humanization of values, opposing racism, alleviating poverty, supporting women's issues and supporting environmental issues.

Mission

"MISSION STATEMENT

We Sisters of Charity of Nazareth are an international Congregation impelled by the love of Christ in the tradition of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac and the pioneer spirit of Catherine Spalding.

Embracing intercultural relationships, we and our Associates commit ourselves to care for all creation and to work for peace and justice in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized peoples."

--SISTERS OF CHARITY OF NAZARETH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2023

See also

• St. Thomas-St. Vincent Orphanage

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Sisters of Charity of Nazareth — Founded Dec., 1812, by the Rev. B.J.M. David (see ). Father David, while establishing his seminary on the farm of St. Thomas, near Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky, took charge of the missions among the surrounding Catholic population. Here he found children without instructors, sick, aged, and poor without care. The need of devoted religious women was felt. He found a few young girls willing to consecrate their lives to the service of God and their neighbour. The first to offer herself was Teresa Carrico; Catherine Spalding, her assistant, Harriet Gardiner, and others followed. Very soon six were assembled, and the number continued to increase. All were daughters of pioneer settlers (see, Religion); their zeal and capacity for good works formed their only dower. They taught the children, spun wool or flax, and wove it into cloth out of which they fashioned garments for themselves and for Father David's seminarians, who, on the side, found time in the intervals of study to fell trees, hew logs, and build the seminary and convent. The first log house occupied by the sisters received from Father David the name of Nazareth. This name the mother-house has preserved, and thence the sisters are popularly called "Sisters of Nazareth", being thus distinguished from other Sisters of Charity.

Mother Seton could not spare sisters from Emmisttsburg to train the new community, as Bishop Glaget had requested, but she sent him the same copy of the Rule of St. Vincent de Paul which he himself had brought her from France, and Father David carefully attended to the training of the novices. In February, 1816, he found the first sisters sufficiently prepared to take the vows. The little body was fairly organized, and its work was fast extending. Miss Eleanor O'Connell (Sister Ellen), a scholarly woman and experienced teacher, came to them from Baltimore, and to her the early success of the educational work of Nazareth is largely due. The reputation of Nazareth Academy was soon established, and students, even from a distance, crowded the classrooms, although it was not until 1829 that the Legislature of Kentucky granted its charter to the "Nazareth Literary and Benevolent Institution". Sister Ellen prepared others to assist her, establishing what was virtually a normal school for the sisters, which has been zealously maintained ever since. In 1822 the mother-house was removed to a farm purchased for the purpose near Bardstown. Both the convent church and the academy building were completed in 1825. The sisters, at the same time, never lost sight of their primary work of succouring the sick and the poor. In each of their houses destitute children were cared for. St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum was opened in Louisville, after the cholera epidemic, in 1834. Thenceforth schools, hospitals, and asylums grew apace.

Besides the mother-house, the congregation now has sixteen branch academies and high schools modelled upon it. The sisters teach about 15,000 children in parochial schools, and care for more than 5000 sick in their hospitals and infirmaries. On petition of the present superior, Mother Eutropia McMahon, the congregation received the formal approbation of the Holy See, 5 September, 1910, nearly 98 years after its first foundation.

Besides the historical works referred to under KENTUCKY and LOUISVILLE, see SPALDING, Sketches of Kentucky, (1884); BARTON, Angels of the Battlefield (1897); Annals of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth; A brief Historical Sketch of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky (1908).

Bibliography

• Jones, Arthur (October 6, 2012). "Sisters of Charity of Nazareth celebrate two centuries of service". National Catholic Reporter. Archived from the original on May 24, 2013.

External links

• Sisters of Charity of Nazareth