Good Shepherd Sisters

Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd

Congregationis Sororum a Bono Pastore
Abbreviation	Religious of the Good Shepherd (R.G.S.)
Formation	1835
Founder	Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier
Type	Catholic religious order
Headquarters	Via Raffaello Sardiello, 20 00165 Rome, Italy
Congregational Leader	Sister Brigid Lawlor
Website	www.buonpastoreint.org

The Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd (also known as the Sisters of the Good Shepherd) is a Catholic religious order that was founded in 1835 by Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier in Angers, France. The Sisters belong to a Catholic international congregation of religious women dedicated to promoting the welfare of women and girls. The Congregation has a representative at the United Nations, and has spoken out against human trafficking.

The Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd began as a branch of the Order of Our Lady of Charity (Ordo Dominae Nostrae de Caritate), founded in 1641 by Saint John Eudes, at Caen, France, and dedicated to the care, rehabilitation, and education of girls and young women in difficulty. Some of the girls were abandoned by their families or orphaned, some had turned to prostitution in order to survive. The Sisters provided shelter, food, vocational training and an opportunity for these girls and women to turn their lives around.

The Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was founded by Rose Virginie Pelletier in Angers, France, in 1835. Rose was the daughter of a medical doctor and his wife, known for their generosity to the poor. At the age of eighteen, she joined the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Charity in Tours and was given her the name Sister Mary of Saint Euphrasia. At the age of twenty-nine, she became Mother superior of the convent.

While superior at Tours, Sister Mary Euphrasia formed a contemplative nuns group, named the Magdalen Sisters (based in a devotion to Saint Mary Magdalene's conversion), now known as the Contemplative Communities of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, for penitent women who wished to live a cloistered life, but were ineligible to become Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. On November 11, 1825, four young women began their novitiate with a short rule given to them by Archbishop de Montblanc of Tours, which followed the Rule of the Third Order of Mount Carmel, and earned their own way with intricate embroidery and production of altar bread.