Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community

by Mary Beth Fraser Connolly

Overview

When the Sisters of Mercy lost their foundress Sister Catherine McAuley in 1841, stories of Mother Catherine passed from one generation of sisters to the next. McAuley's Rule and Constitutions along with her spiritual writings and correspondence communicated the Mercys' founding charism. Each generation of Sisters of Mercy who succeeded her took these words and her spirit with them as they established new communities or foundations across the United States and around the world. In Women of Faith, Mary Beth Fraser Connolly traces the paths of the women who dedicated their lives to the Sisters of Mercy Chicago Regional Community, the first Congregation of Catholic Sisters in Chicago.

More than the story of the institutions that defined the territory and ministries of the women of this Midwestern region, Women of Faith presents a history of the women who made this regional community, whether as foundresses of individual communities in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries or as the teachers, nurses, and pastoral ministers who cared for and educated generations of Midwestern American Catholics. Though they had no immediate connection with McAuley, these women inherited her spirit and vision for religious life.

Focusing on how the Chicago Mercys formed a community, lived their spiritual lives, and served within the institutional Catholic Church, this three-part perspective addresses community, spirituality, and ministry, providing a means by which we can trace the evolution of these women of faith as the world around them changed. The first part of this study focuses on the origins of the Sisters of Mercy in the Midwest from the founding of the Chicago South Side community in 1846 through the amalgamation and creation of the Chicago Province in 1929. The second part examines how the Mercys came together as one province through the changes of Vatican II from 1929 to the 1980s. Part III examines life after the dramatic changes of Vatican II in the 1990s and 2000s.

Presenting rich examples of how faith cannot be separated from identity, Women of Faith provides an important new contribution to the scholarship that is shaping our collective understanding of women religious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823254736
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	02/03/2014
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	12.00(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Mary Beth Fraser Connolly is the Assistant Director of the Lilly Fellows Program and Assistant Adjunct in History at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. Her research interests include the history of American women and religion, with a particular interest in American Catholic women religious.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: "One Solid Comfort" 1

Part I: "Charity Embraces Those Who Abound": The Spirit of Mercy Comes to America, 1846 to 1929
1. "The Spirit of our Institute is Mercy, as its Name Denotes": The Nature of Mercy in Nineteenth Century America
2. "Not Bound by Enclosure": The Sisters of Mercy Respond: 1846 to 1929

Part II: "This Mutual Love and Union": From Amalgamation to a Post Vatican II World: 1929 to the 1980s
3. New Community, Same Spirit
4. Demanding Decades: Mercy Response to the Clergy and the Laity: 1928 to 1962
5. "Change is Blowing Hard": Renewal of Religious Life in the 1960s and 1970s
6. Reinventing Community and Service to the World

Part III: New Life, New Paths, Same Spirit: Carrying Mercy into the Twenty-First Century, 1980s to 2008
7. "This Far by Faith": Reimagined Religious Life and the Sisters of Mercy

Epilogue: West Midwest and the Legacy of the Sisters of Mercy Chicago Regional Community

Appendixes
A. Parish Grade Schools, Academies, High Schools, Universities, and Alternative Schools
B. Hospitals, Facilities, and Residences Owned and/or Sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, Chicago Regional Community

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A timely and probing analysis of the Chicago Mercy's and how they met the unremitting challenges of both growth and restructuring over their 150 year history. The particular strength of Mary Beth Fraser Connolly's book, Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community derives from its in-depth examination of the events and decisions arising from Vatican II. The process of change and adaptation was demanding offering no easy answers. This research contributes much to our understanding of Catholic women's identities, feminisms and leadership."-Carmen M. Mangion, Birkbeck, University of London

"Fraser Connelly has penned a book that an be read by a broad audience. She provides good integration and balance of both primary and secondary sources with an extensive bibliography for the reader. Her chronological yet thematic organization interweaves the ongoing narrative with focus on important themes for each time period."—History.uk

"Connolly offers a well-constructed historical survey of the Chicago Sisters of Mercy from their beginnings in 1846 until 2008...The book's strength is its focus on the women themselves— their community, spiritual lives, and ministry...Copious notes, a helpful glossary, and an appendix render the sources accessible to researchers.—Recommended"
—Choice Magazine

From the Publisher

Connolly offers a well-constructed historical survey of the Chicago Sisters of Mercy from their beginnings in 1846 until 2008...The book's strength is its focus on the women themselves— their community, spiritual lives, and ministry...Copious notes, a helpful glossary, and an appendix render the sources accessible to researchers.—Recommended

Choice Magazine

A capacity for generosity and zeal underlay the modest appearance of the young Sisters of Mercy who, from humble Irish origins, quietly created a safety net for the poor in nineteenth-century urban America. As they adapted their makeshift, wide-ranging ministries to local needs, they became familiar neighborhood figures and over time shaped the landscape of cities and towns with larger, more visible institutions. Today there are many histories of Catholic sisters, but few focus fully on the Mercys. Mary Beth Fraser Connolly’s Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community seriously and smartly does. She gives us a better understanding of the binding ties between gender, faith, and region, while enlarging our understanding of the sisters’ lives in community and their contributions in education, health care, and social welfare in Chicago as well as Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago's Past - Suellen Hoy

A timely and probing analysis of the Chicago Mercys and how they met the unremitting challenges of both growth and restructuring over their 150 year history. The particular strength of Mary Beth Fraser Connolly’s book, Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community derives from its in-depth examination of the events and decisions arising from Vatican II. The process of change and adaptation was demanding offering no easy answers. This research contributes much to our understanding of Catholic women’s identities, feminisms and leadership.

Birkbeck, University of London - Carmen M. Mangion

Mary Beth Fraser Connolly has written an important book: scholarly in depth and scope, and yet clearly accessible to general readers. Women of Faith does much more than most such histories to explore the faith dimension of a modern religious community and its ministries—something which, surprisingly, too many researchers ignore or minimize. She “gets” what the Sisters of Mercy are all about, and her work should serve as a model for others doing research on contemporary women’s congregations.

Syracuse University - Margaret Susan Thompson

Fraser Connolly's informative history of the Chicago Sisters of Mercy presents a wealth of new research that not only adds to our understanding of one congregation, but enhances our knowledge of the larger story of women religious in the United States.

Neighbors and Missionaries: A History of the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine - Margaret M. McGuinness