Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge

Order of Our Lady of Charity

Ordo Dominae Nostrae de Caritate (O.D.N.C.)
Merged into	Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd
Formation	25 November 1641, in Caen, France
Founder	Saint John Eudes
Type	Roman Catholic religious order
Headquarters	Via Raffaello Sardiello, 20, 00165 Roma, Italia
Congregational Leader	Sister Angela Fahy
Website	www.olcint.org

The Order of Our Lady of Charity (also known as Order of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge) is a Roman Catholic monastic order, founded in 1641 by Saint John Eudes, at Caen, France.

Moved by pity for prostitutes, Father John Eudes at first attempted to house them under the care of good and pious women. One of these women, Madeleine Lamy persuaded Pere Eudes that more was needed. Three Visitation nuns came to his aid temporarily, and, in 1641, a house was opened at Caen under the title of Refuge of Our Lady of Charity. Other ladies joined them, and, in 1651, the Bishop of Bayeux gave the institute his approbation. In 1664 a Bull of approbation was obtained from Pope Alexander VII. That same year a house was opened at Rennes, and the institute began to spread. When the French Revolution broke out there were seven communities of the order in France.

All the houses of this order are independent of each other, and each has its own novitiate, but the mother-house is still at Caen. The nuns wear a white habit and a large silver cross on the breast. To the three ordinary religious vows they add a fourth, viz., to devote themselves to the reformation of the fallen. The novitiate lasts two years.

On 8 July 1855, Sister Jerome Tourneux of Rennes, France, established the first Foundation in North America in Buffalo, New York, and thus began the spread of the Mission of Our Lady of Charity in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In France they had seventeen houses: one each at Caen, Saint-Brieuc, Rennes, La Rochelle, Paris, Versailles, Nantes, Lyon, Valence, Toulouse, Le Mans, Blois, Montauban, Besançon, Valognes, and two at Marseilles; in Italy, one at Loreto; and in Spain, one at Bilbao; and in Austria.