This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2014) |
Formation | December 1, 1812 |
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Type | Religious institute |
Headquarters | Nazareth, Kentucky |
Location |
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Website | nazareth |
The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) is a Roman Catholic order of nuns. It was founded in 1812 near Bardstown, Kentucky, when three young women responded to Bishop John Baptist Mary David's call for assistance in ministering to the needs of the people of the area.
The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth was founded in 1812. Mother Catherine Spalding, along with Bishop John Baptist Mary David, are honored together and remembered as co-founders of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. [1]
In 1812, in the newly formed diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, Bishop Benedict Flaget was overwhelmed by the responsibility of providing religious education for the children of Catholic families who had migrated to Kentucky from Maryland after the Revolutionary War. In response to this need, Father John Baptist David, who had recently established St. Thomas Seminary, called for young women willing to devote their lives to the service of the Church. [2] From among a group of six women that responded to the call, nineteen-year-old Catherine Spalding, originally from Maryland, was elected first superior of the Congregation. Mother Catherine guided the young Congregation for forty-five years. [1]
The new community followed the rule of St. Vincent de Paul and their dwelling was named Nazareth. [3] The symbol of the congregation is the pelican feeding its young from its own body. The Sisters' spiritual formation and service to their neighbors steadily expanded on the Kentucky frontier and beyond.
Their education ministry began in 1814 when the first school, Nazareth Academy, was opened at the motherhouse near Bardstown. Spalding founded Presentation Academy in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1831. The academy began to grant degrees in 1829.
Since the beginning years of the congregation, SCNs have been involved in a variety of ministries, responding to the needs of the times. In 1832, when Catherine Spalding brought home two orphans left on the wharf in Louisville, their social work ministry began. Pastoral ministry later emerged within the congregation as a distinct form of ministry after Vatican II as they followed the call of the Church to respond to the signs of the times.
In 1833, when cholera struck, SCNs nursed victims of the disease. So began their health care ministry, which continued as the sisters served in military hospitals during the Civil War. [4]
In 1920, the Sisters opened Nazareth College in Louisville, Kentucky's first, four-year, Catholic college for women. The Louisville and Nazareth campuses merged. and in 1969, the school was renamed Spalding College. Two years later, all instructional activity was moved to the Louisville campus. Former dorms on SCN's campus now function as affordable housing for the elderly and disabled. [4] In 1984, Spalding College became Spalding University.
In 2000, the sisters apologized for the slaveholding past and erected a monument in memory of those who had suffered in their bondage. [5]
Founded as a diocesan community, they are now an international congregation, both in ministry and membership. As of 2018, 550 sisters were serving in 20 states in the U.S., in India, Nepal, Botswana, and Belize. [4]
They are committed to six priorities in ministry: promoting peace, promoting humanization of values, opposing racism, alleviating poverty, supporting women's issues and supporting environmental issues. Through their daily lives and ministries, in collaboration with their Associates and others, they are living out these priorities to meet the changing needs of today's world in their spirit of pioneering.
Their website reads: "The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth are an international Congregation in a multicultural world. Impelled by the love of Christ, in the tradition of Vincent de Paul and the pioneer spirit of Catherine Spalding, Sisters and Associates are committed to work for justice in solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially the economically poor and women, and to care for the earth. They risk their lives and resources, both personally and corporately, as they engage in diverse ministries in carrying out this mission." [6]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Sisters of Charity of Nazareth". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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The Diocese of Bardstown was a Latin Church Catholic diocese in the United States established in Bardstown, Kentucky on April 8, 1808, along with the Diocese of Boston, Diocese of New York, and Diocese of Philadelphia, comprising the former territory of the Diocese of Baltimore west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Diocese of Baltimore simultaneously became a metropolitan archdiocese with the four new sees as its suffragans. The title of the former Diocese of Bardstown changed to Diocese of Louisville with the transfer of its see from Bardstown to Louisville in 1841.
Spalding University is a private Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
Catherine Spalding, known as Mother Spalding, was an American educator who was a co-founder and longtime mother superior of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. She pioneered education, health services and social services for girls and orphans in Louisville and other Kentucky cities. On January 6, 2003, the Louisville Courier-Journal named Spalding as the only woman among sixteen "most influential people in Louisville/Jefferson County history."
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Benedict Joseph Flaget was a French-born Catholic bishop in the United States. He served as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bardstown between 1808 and 1839. When the see was transferred to Louisville in 1839, he became Bishop of the Diocese of Louisville where he served from 1839 to 1850.
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Martin John Spalding was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Louisville in Kentucky (1850–1864) and as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (1864–1872). He advocated aid for freed slaves following the American Civil War. Spalding attended the First Vatican Council, where he first opposed, and then supported, a dogmatic proclamation of papal infallibility.
William Byrne was an Irish-born American Roman Catholic missionary and educator. He was born in County Wicklow, Ireland and died at Bardstown, Kentucky.
John Lancaster Spalding was an American author, poet, advocate for higher education, the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria from 1877 to 1908 and a co-founder of The Catholic University of America.
John Baptist Mary David, S.S., was a French-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Bardstown in Kentucky from 1832-33.
Nazareth is an unincorporated community and a historic site in Nelson County, Kentucky, United States, located about three miles north of Bardstown. The zipcode is: 40048.
St. Thomas–St. Vincent Orphanage was an orphanage located in Anchorage, Kentucky, best known for allegations of child sexual and physical abuse by one priest, seven nuns, and five laymen, between the 1930s and 1970s. It opened with the merger of St. Thomas Orphanage and St. Vincent Orphanage in 1955 and closed in 1983 as a result of rising costs and increased government services for orphans.
Barbara "Mary Lucy" Dosh was a Catholic sister in the order of the Sisters of Nazareth. She was a volunteer nurse in Western Kentucky during the American Civil War, caring for both Union troops and Confederate prisoners of war, and died in the course of duty from typhoid fever. In 2012, the United States Congress passed a resolution honoring Dosh's nursing care given to both Union and Confederate soldiers.