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Sisters of Mercy

Sisters of Mercy
Photo mcauley.jpg
Mother Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Religious Sisters of Mercy
Abbreviation R.S.M
Formation 12 December 1831
Founded at Dublin, Ireland
Type Catholic religious order
Members
11,000
Key people
Catherine McAuley
Website [1]

The Religious Sisters of Mercy (R.S.M.) are members of a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland by Catherine McAuley (1778–1841). In 2003 the institute had about 11,000 members worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They also started many schools around the globe.

The Sisters of Mercy institute began when Catherine McAuley used an inherited fortune to build a "House of Mercy" in Dublin that provided educational, religious, and social services for poor women and children. The House aroused much local opposition, however, it being traditional for nuns rather than lay women to engage in this sort of activity. Eventually the church hierarchy agreed to the formation of a non-cloistered institute, and the sisters became known informally as the 'walking nuns' for their ability to care for the poor outside a convent. The house still sits today, as the Mercy International Centre.

Catherine McAuley and two associates made their novitiate with the Presentation Sisters. Now known as Sister Mary Catherine, she was appointed first superior of the new congregation, an office which she held for the remainder of her life. The rule and constitutions of the congregation were not completed until 1834, nor approved until 1835, yet they contained in substance only that which had been observed from the year 1827. The basis of the rule was that of St. Austin although circumstances required many alterations before its approval.

Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) was the first place outside Dublin in which a house of the congregation was opened. In 1838 at the suggestion of Rev. Peter Butler of Bermondsey, some English ladies came to Ireland to serve a novitiate for the purpose of introducing the congregation into England. Upon their return, Mother M. Clare Moore was appointed the superior of the Bermondsey Convent.

In May 1842, at the request of Bishop Fleming, a small colony of Sisters of Mercy crossed the Atlantic to found the congregation at St. John's, Newfoundland. The sisters arrived in Perth, Australia in 1846, and three years later, a band from Carlow arrived in New Zealand. In Sydney they opened schools and a servants' home. Sisters from Limerick opened a house in Glasgow in 1849, and in 1868 the English community established a house in Guernsey.


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