Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/589

 JOSEPH

517

JOSEPH

1S90 the approval of Pope Leo XIII was obtained for the rules of the congregation. When religious teach- ing was forbidden in France, the sisters, with the per- mission of Archbishop Begin of Quebec, took refuge in his archdiocese (1903), establishing the provincial house at St-Jean, Port-Joli, where a boarding-school for girls was opened. The sisters now number about 50, in charge of a hospital, an academy, and 6 model elementarj' schools. In 1905 they were placed over a model school in the city of Quebec, where they opened a novitiate, the first reception taking place the follow- ing year. The sisters in France are still in charge of 3 hospitals.

The Sistebs of St. Joseph.

Little Daughters of St. Joseph, established at 45 rue Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Montreal. After the blessing of the bishop of the diocese (Mgr Bourget) had been obtained, the institute was founded on 26 April — the feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph — 1857, by the Sulpician father, Antoine Mercier. Its object is to aid the clergj- in spiritual and temporal matters, both by the ministry of prayer and by dis- charging certain manual services, such as the manu- facture of liturgical vestments and ornaments, and the manufacture, repair, and bleaching of the linen destined for the service of the altars of the various churches, etc. Missionaries without resources and poor seminarians are special objects of the charitable attentions of this community. Always under the di- rection of the Sulpicians, to whose assistance and de- votion it is indebted for its prosperity, this httle institute had the consolation of seeing its existence and regulations canonically approved by Mgr Bru- chesi, Archbishop of Montreal, on 20 September, 1897. The community at present numbers 65 pro- fessed sisters, 6 novices, and 5 postulants.

Little Daughters of St. Joseph.

Polish Fr.vnciscan Sisters of St. Joseph. — In 1901 about forty sisters, all of Polish nationality, branched off from the School Sisters of St. Francis, whose mother-house is at Milwaukee, and after ob- taining the necessary dispensation from the Holy See through the efforts of Archbishop Messmer, in .April, 1902. organized themselves into the Polish Francis- can Sisters of St. Joseph, with their mother-house at Stevens Point in the Diocese of Green Bay. They have since increased to nearly two hundred members, in charge of ten schools. They hve under the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, and their particular object is the education of the young in Catholic schools. Joseph J. Fox.

Sisters of St. Joseph of Clunt, founded in 179S, by Anne-Marie Javouhey at Seurre, in Burgundy. The foundress was born in 1779, at Chamblanc, near Seurre, and though only ten years old, she frequently fetched priests to the dying, at the risk of her own life, in the Revolution of 1789. Nine years later she, with the help of a Trappist Father, founded a small congregation at Seurre, for the instruction of children and for nursing the sick and taking charge of orphans. The congregation was intended to be on the same lines as the third order of the Trappists. In 1S04 Pius VII passed through Seurre, after crowning Napoleon Bona- parte as emperor in Paris, and received Mother Javou- hey with three of her community and blessed them. In 1809 Mother Javouhey made her profession, after nine years' preparation, and, having received the habit, was appointed superior-general of the congre- gation. The novitiate was established at C'luny, and henceforth the congregation was known as the Si.sters of St. Joseph of Cluny. Mother Javouhey died in 1851. The sisters undertake all kinds of charitable works, but they devote themselves espe- cially to missionary labours and the education of the

young. Their rule was approved by Pius IX and con- firmed by Leo XIII. The foundress was declared Venerable by the Holy See, 11 Feb., 1908. The sis- ters now number about 4000, and are widely spread over the world. The mother-house is in Paris, and there are numerous houses of the congregation in vari- ous parts of France: there are houses also in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, England, Scotland, Ireland, Chili, Peru, the East and West Indies, India, and Cey- lon. In 1816 the congregation spread to the East and West Coasts of Africa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Victoria (.Australia). Altogether 45,000 children are being educated by the sisters, and 70,000 poor and sick are cared for by them in their various institutions, which now (1910) number 385. Thirty-one of the sisters perished in the terrible catastrophe at Marti- nique, in 1902, when the town of St-Pierre was wrecked by a volcanic eruption. In England the sisters have one house at Stafford, where there is a novitiate for the English-speaking subjects; there is a high-class day- school attached to the convent. There are three houses in Scotland, all in Ayrshire, with which are con- nected a boarding-school and 4 elementary schools, attended by 500 children. The .sisters number 27. In Paris the famous hospital of Pasteur is under the care of forty sisters of this congregation. Life of Rev. Mother Javouhey (Dublin, 1903).

Fr.^jsicesca M. Steele.

Sisters of St. Joseph of PEACE.^This institu- tion, founded in the year 1884 at Nottingham, Eng- land, by the Right Reverend E. G. Bagshawe [then bishop of that diocese, now (1910) Archbishop of Seleucia], with rules and constitutions under the au- thority of the Holy See, has for its special object the domestic and industrial training of girls (chiefly of the working class) vAxh the view to promote peace and happiness in famiUes, in union with and in imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth. In addition to this, the sisters are employed in educating the young, in- structing converts, \nsiting the sick poor, and caring for orphans, the blind, and the sick in hospitals. The administrative body is composed of a superior general and five councillors elected for six years. There are no lay sisters. The postulancy lasts for .six months, and the novitiate for two years, after which vows are taken for three years, and then perpetual vows. The habit is black, with a scapular of the same colour, a black veil and white linen kerchief, domino and fore- head band, a leathern cincture, and a five decade rosary beads. A silver ring is given at the final profession. Novices wear a white veil during the novitiate. In March, 1895, the constitutions were submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda by the founder, and in the September following the Decree "Lauda" was obtained. At present the insti- tute has three houses in England: the mother-house situated at Nottingham, a hou.se at Grimsby in the same diocese, and one at Hanwell in the Archdiocese of Westminster. The sisters teach in the parish ele- mentary schools at Nottingham and Hanwell, and have a middle-class school attached to each convent. In Grimsby, besides a middle-class school, there is a girls' orphanage and a steam laundry, which is a means of maintenance as well as of training in that branch of household work. The younger children attend the parish school.

The first foundation in .America was established in 1885 at the request of the Right Reverend Bishop Wigger of the Diocese of Newark, N. J., who became deeply interested in the work of the institute, and was convinced of the great good which could be effected by a community devoted to the protection and training of poor girls for a Hfe of usefulness in the world. The place selected for tliis object was in St. Peter's Parish, Jersey City, in charge of the Jesuit fathers, where the sisters met with a true friend and supporter in the