Fernán Caballero

 Raimundo Diosdado Caballero

 Juan Caballero y Ocio

 Cabasa

 Jean Cabassut

 Miguel Cabello de Balboa

 Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca

 John & Sebastian Cabot

 Francisco Cabral

 Pedralvarez Cabral

 Estévan (Juan) Cabrillo

 Cadalous

 Caddo Indians

 Cades

 Antoine de Lamothe, Sieur de Cadillac

 Diocese of Cadiz

 St. Caedmon

 University of Caen

 Cæremoniale Episcoporum

 Caesarea

 Caesarea Mauretaniae

 Caesarea Palaestinae

 Caesarea Philippi

 St. Caesarius of Arles

 Caesarius of Heisterbach

 St. Caesarius of Nazianzus

 Caesarius of Prüm

 Caesar of Speyer

 Caesaropolis

 Archdiocese of Cagliari

 Diocese of Cagli e Pergola

 Charles Cahier

 Daniel William Cahill

 Diocese of Cahors

 Diocese of Caiazzo

 Armand-Benjamin Caillau

 Cain

 Cainites

 Joseph Caiphas

 Caius

 John Caius

 Popes Sts. Caius and Soter

 St. Cajetan

 Constantino Cajetan

 Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cajetan

 Diocese of Calabozo

 Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada

 Calama

 Fray Antonio de la Calancha

 Calas Case

 Mario di Calasio

 Pedro de Calatayud

 Military Order of Calatrava

 Archdiocese of Calcutta

 Polidoro (da Caravaggio) Caldara

 Domingos Caldas-Barbosa

 Pedro Calderon de la Barca

 Caleb

 Christian Calendar

 Jewish Calendar

 Reform of the Calendar

 Ambrogio Calepino

 Paolo Caliari

 California

 Vicariate Apostolic of Lower California

 California Missions

 Louis-Hector de Callières

 Callinicus

 Callipolis

 Pope Callistus I

 Pope Callistus II

 Pope Callistus III

 Jacques Callot

 Pierre Cally

 Dom Augustin Calmet

 Caloe

 Diocese of Caltagirone

 Diocese of Caltanisetta

 Calumny

 Dionysius Calvaert

 Congregation of Our Lady of Calvary

 Mount Calvary

 Calvert

 Diocese of Calvi and Teano

 John Calvin

 Calvinism

 Justus Baronius Calvinus

 Calynda

 Camachus

 Camaldolese

 Diego Muñoz Camargo

 Luca Cambiaso

 Archdiocese of Cambrai

 University of Cambridge

 Cambysopolis

 George Joseph Camel

 Diocese of Camerino

 Camerlengo

 St. Camillus de Lellis

 Camisards

 Luis Vaz de Camões

 Girolamo Campagna

 Domenico Campagnola

 Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan

 Pedro Campaña

 Tommaso Campanella

 Giuseppe Campani

 Diocese of Campeche

 Lorenzo Campeggio

 Bernardino Campi

 Galeazzo Campi

 Giulio Campi

 Campo Santo de' Tedeschi

 Jean-Pierre Camus de Pont-Carré

 Cana

 Canada

 José de la Canal

 Canary Islands

 Canatha

 Luis Cancer de Barbastro

 Candace

 Diocese of Candia

 Candidus

 Candlemas

 Candles

 Candlesticks

 Canea

 Vicariate Apostolic of Canelos and Macas

 Vincent Canes

 St. Canice

 Henricus Canisius

 Theodorich Canisius

 Alonso Cano

 Melchior Cano

 Canon

 Canon (2)

 Canoness

 Canon of the Mass

 Canon of the Holy Scriptures

 Apostolic Canons

 Collections of Ancient Canons

 Ecclesiastical Canons

 Canons and Canonesses Regular

 Canons Regular of the Immaculate Conception

 Canopus

 Canopy

 Canossa

 Antonio Canova

 Cantate Sunday

 Ancient Diocese of Canterbury

 Canticle

 Canticle of Canticles

 Cantor

 Cesare Cantù

 Canute

 St. Canute IV

 Diocese of Capaccio and Vallo

 Baptiste-Honoré-Raymond Capefigue

 Pietro Caperolo

 John Capgrave

 Diocese of Cap Haïtien

 Capharnaum

 Capitolias

 Capitularies

 Episcopal and Pontifical Capitulations

 Count Gino Capponi

 Domenico Capranica

 Giovanni Battista Caprara

 John Capreolus

 Capsa

 Captain (In the Bible)

 Captivities of the Israelites

 Archdiocese of Capua

 Capuchinesses

 Capuchin Friars Minor

 Capuciati

 Apostolic Prefecture of Caquetá

 José de Carabantes

 Caracalla

 Archdiocese of Caracas

 Vincent Caraffa

 Caraites

 Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz

 Auguste Carayon

 James Joseph Carbery

 Carbonari

 Ignatius Carbonnelle

 Diocese of Carcassonne (Carcassum)

 Girolamo Cardan

 Juan Cardenas

 Cardica

 Cardinal

 Cardinal Protector

 Cardinal Vicar

 Cardinal Virtues

 Bartolommeo and Vincenzo Carducci

 Carem

 Mathew Carey

 Etienne de Carheil

 Diocese of Cariati (Paternum)

 Caribs

 Giacomo Carissimi

 Dionigi Carli da Piacenza

 Ancient Diocese of Carlisle

 Carlovingian Schools

 Carmel

 Mount Carmel

 Carmelite Order

 Melchior Carneiro

 Jean-Baptiste Carnoy

 Horacio Carochi

 Caroline Books (Libri Carolini)

 Caroline Islands

 Raymond Caron

 René-Edouard Caron

 Vittore Carpaccio

 Carpasia

 Diocese of Carpi

 Carracci

 Bartolomé Carranza

 Diego Carranza

 Juan Carreno de Miranda

 Rafael Carrera

 Carrhae

 Joseph Carrière

 Louis de Carrières

 Charles Carroll of Carrollton

 Daniel Carroll

 John Carroll

 Archdiocese of Cartagena

 Diocese of Cartagena

 St. Carthage

 Archdiocese of Carthage

 Carthusian Order

 Georges-Etienne Cartier

 Jacques Cartier

 Bernardino Lopez de Carvajal

 Gaspar de Carvajal

 Juan Carvajal (Carvagial)

 Luis de Carvajal

 Luisa de Carvajal

 Thomas Carve

 John Caryll

 Carystus

 Diocese of Casale Monferrato (Casalensis)

 Giovanni Battista Casali

 Vicariate Apostolic of Casanare

 Girolamo Casanata

 Bartolomé de las Casas

 Diocese of Caserta

 John Casey

 Henri Raymond Casgrain

 Cashel

 St. Casimir

 Casium

 Jean-Jacques Casot

 George Cassander

 Joseph Cassani

 Diocese of Cassano all' Ionio

 Patrick S. Casserly

 John Cassian

 William Cassidy

 Giovanni Domenico Cassini

 Cassiodorus

 François Dollier de Casson

 Diocese of Cassovia

 Castabala

 Andrea Castagno

 Diocese of Castellammare di Stabia

 Diocese of Castellaneta (Castania)

 Juan de Castellanos

 Benedetto Castelli

 Pietro Castelli

 Giovanni Battista Castello

 Baldassare Castiglione

 Count Carlo Ottavio Castiglione

 Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

 Castile and Aragon

 Cristóbal de Castillejo

 Caspar Castner

 Castoria

 Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli

 Alphonsus de Castro

 Fernando Castro Palao

 Guillen de Castro y Bellvis

 Casuistry

 Edward Caswall

 Roman Catacombs

 Catafalque

 Giuseppe Catalani

 Catalonia

 Archdiocese of Catania (Catanensis)

 Diocese of Catanzaro

 Catechumen

 Categorical Imperative

 Category

 Catenæ

 Cathari

 Cathedra

 Cathedral

 Cathedraticum

 Ven. Edmund Catherick

 Monastery of St. Catherine

 Catherine de' Medici

 St. Catherine de' Ricci

 St. Catherine of Alexandria

 St. Catherine of Bologna

 St. Catherine of Genoa

 St. Catherine of Siena

 St. Catherine of Sweden

 Catholic

 Catholic Benevolent Legion

 The Catholic Club of New York

 Catholic Epistle

 Catholic Knights of America

 Catholic Missionary Union

 Catholicos

 Catholic University of America

 François Catrou

 Diocese of Cattaro (Catharum)

 Augustin-Louis Cauchy

 Caughnawaga

 François-Etienne Caulet

 Caunus

 Cause

 Nicolas Caussin

 Diocese of Cava and Sarno

 Felice Cavagnis

 Bonaventura Cavalieri

 James Cavanagh

 Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi

 Celestino Cavedoni

 Andres Cavo

 William Caxton

 Diocese of Cayes

 Comte de Caylus

 Charles-Félix Cazeau

 St. Ceadda

 Diocese of Cebú

 St. Cecilia

 Cedar (1)

 Cedar (2)

 St. Cedd

 Cedes

 Brook of Cedron

 Diocese of Cefalù

 Rémi Ceillier

 Celebret

 Celenderis

 Pope St. Celestine I

 Pope Celestine II

 Pope Celestine III

 Pope Celestine IV

 Pope St. Celestine V

 Celibacy of the Clergy

 Cella

 Elizabeth Cellier

 Benvenuto Cellini

 Celsus the Platonist

 Conrad Celtes

 The Celtic Rite

 Cemetery

 Religious of the Cenacle

 Robert Cenalis

 Diocese of Ceneda

 Censer

 Censorship of Books

 Ecclesiastical Censures

 Theological Censures

 Census

 German Roman Catholic Central Verein of North America

 Centuriators of Magdeburg

 Centurion

 St. Ceolfrid

 Ceolwulf

 Francisco Cepeda

 Ceramus

 Cerasus

 Ceremonial

 Ceremony

 Cerinthus

 Certitude

 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

 Salazar Francisco Cervantes

 Diocese of Cervia

 Andrea Cesalpino

 Giuliano Cesarini

 Diocese of Cesena

 St. Ceslaus

 Cestra

 Ceylon

 Noel Chabanel

 Diocese of Chachapoyas

 James Chadwick

 Pierre Chaignon

 Chair of Peter

 Chalcedon

 Council of Chalcedon

 Chalcis

 Chaldean Christians

 Chalice

 Richard Challoner

 Diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne

 Cham, Chamites

 Archdiocese of Chambéry (Camberium)

 Samuel de Champlain

 Anthony Champney

 Jean-François Champollion

 Etienne Agard de Champs

 Chanaan, Chanaanites

 Diego Alvarez Chanca

 Chancel

 Bl. Pierre-Louis-Marie Chanel

 Vicariate Apostolic of Changanacherry

 Claude Chantelou

 Chantry

 Jean Chapeauville

 Chapel

 Placide-Louis Chapelle

 Chaplain

 Jean-Antoine Chaptal

 Chapter

 Chapter House

 Character

 Character (in Catholic Theology)

 Charadrus

 Jean-Baptiste Chardon

 Mathias Chardon

 Chariopolis

 Charismata

 Civil Law Concerning Charitable Bequests

 Charity and Charities

 Congregation of the Brothers of Charity

 Sisters of Charity

 Charlemagne

 St. Charles Borromeo

 Emperor Charles V

 Charles Martel

 Diocese of Charleston

 François-Xavier Charlevoix

 Diocese of Charlottetown

 François-Philippe Charpentier

 Pierre Charron

 Charterhouse

 Alain Chartier

 Diocese of Chartres

 La Grande Chartreuse

 Chartulary

 Georges Chastellain

 Pierre Chastellain

 Chastity

 Chasuble

 François-René de Chateaubriand

 Diocese of Chatham

 Geoffrey Chaucer

 Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot

 Maurice Chauncy

 Pierre-Joseph-Octave Chauveau

 Chelm and Belz

 Timoléon Cheminais de Montaigu

 Cherokee Indians

 Chersonesus

 Cherubim

 Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini

 Ancient Diocese of Chester (Cestrensis)

 Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus

 Michel-Eugène Chevreul

 Diocese of Cheyenne

 Antoine-Léonard de Chézy

 Gabriello Chiabrera

 Diocese of Chiapas

 Diocese of Chiavari

 Chibchas

 Archdiocese of Chicago

 Henry Chichele

 Ancient Catholic Diocese of Chichester (Cicestrensis)

 Diocese of Chicoutimi

 Francesco Chieregati

 Archdiocese of Chieti

 Diocese of Chihuahua

 Diocese of Chilapa

 Children of Mary

 Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart

 Chile

 Domingo (San Anton y Muñon) Chimalpain

 China

 Chinooks

 Diocese of Chioggia (Chiozza)

 Chios

 Chippewa Indians

 Diocese of Chiusi-Pienza

 Chivalry

 Choctaw Indians

 Choir (1)

 Choir (2)

 Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul

 Gilbert Choiseul du Plessis-Praslin

 Pierre Cholonec

 Alexandre-Etienne Choron

 Chrism

 Chrismal, Chrismatory

 Chrismarium

 Order of the Knights of Christ

 Diocese of Christchurch

 Christendom

 Christian

 Christian Archæology

 Christian Art

 Christian Brothers of Ireland

 Sisters of Christian Charity

 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine

 Brothers of Christian Instruction

 Christianity

 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

 Congregation of Christian Retreat

 Christina Alexandra

 Christine de Pisan

 Bl. Christine of Stommeln

 Christmas

 St. Christopher

 Pope Christopher

 St. Chrodegang

 St. Chromatius

 Chronicon Paschale

 Biblical Chronology

 General Chronology

 Sts. Chrysanthus and Daria

 St. Chrysogonus

 Chrysopolis

 Chur

 Church

 Churching of Women

 Church Maintenance

 Chusai

 Chytri

 Giovanni Giustino Ciampini

 Agostino Ciasca

 Ciborium

 Pierre-Martial Cibot

 Robert Ciboule

 Cibyra

 Andrea Ciccione

 Count Leopoldo Cicognara

 El Cid

 Cidyessus

 Diocese of Cienfuegos

 Carlo Cignani

 Cenni di Pepo Cimabue

 Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano

 Prefecture Apostolic of Cimbebasia (Upper)

 Archdiocese of Cincinnati

 Cincture

 Cinites

 Cinna

 Circesium

 Circumcision

 Feast of the Circumcision

 Cisalpine Club

 Cisamus

 Cistercian Sisters

 Cistercians

 Citation

 Abbey of Cîteaux

 Citharizum

 Diocese of Città della Pieve

 Diocese of Città di Castello

 Ciudad Real

 Diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo

 Cius

 Civil Allegiance

 Diocese of Cività Castellana, Orte, and Gallese

 Diocese of Civitavecchia and Corneto

 Abbey of Clairvaux

 Volume 5

 Clandestinity (in Canon Law)

 St. Clare of Assisi

 St. Clare of Montefalco

 Bl. Clare of Rimini

 William Clark

 Claudia

 Claudianus Mamertus

 Claudiopolis (1)

 Claudiopolis (2)

 Francisco Saverio Clavigero

 Christopher Clavius

 Claudius Clavus

 James Clayton

 Clazomenae

 Clean and Unclean

 Jan van Cleef

 Joost van Cleef

 Martin Van Cleef

 Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges

 Charles Clémencet

 Franz Jacob Clemens

 Clemens non Papa

 Pope St. Clement I

 Pope Clement II

 Pope Clement III

 Pope Clement IV

 Pope Clement V

 Pope Clement VI

 Pope Clement VII

 Pope Clement VIII

 Pope Clement IX

 Pope Clement X

 Pope Clement XI

 Pope Clement XII

 Pope Clement XIII

 Pope Clement XIV

 Cæsar Clement

 François Clément

 John Clement

 Clementines

 Bl. Clement Mary Hofbauer

 Clement of Alexandria

 St. Clement of Ireland

 Maurice Clenock

 Cleophas

 Clerestory

 Cleric

 Giovanni Clericato

 Clericis Laicos

 John Clerk

 Agnes Mary Clerke

 Clerks Regular

 Clerks Regular of Our Saviour

 Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca

 Diocese of Clermont

 Pope St. Cletus

 Diocese of Cleveland

 Josse Clichtove

 William Clifford

 Diocese of Clifton

 José Climent

 Ven. Margaret Clitherow

 Diocese of Clogher

 Cloister

 School of Clonard

 Diocese of Clonfert

 Abbey and School of Clonmacnoise

 St. Clotilda

 Clouet

 Councils of Clovesho

 Giorgio Clovio

 Clovis

 Diocese of Cloyne

 Congregation of Cluny

 John Clynn

 Bernabé Cobo

 Viatora Coccaleo

 Diocese of Cochabamba

 Martin of Cochem

 Diocese of Cochin

 Jacques-Denis Cochin

 Pierre-Suzanne-Augustin Cochin

 Johann Cochlæus

 Co-consecrators

 Cocussus

 Codex

 Codex Alexandrinus

 Codex Amiatinus

 Codex Bezae

 Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus

 Codex Sinaiticus

 Codex Vaticanus

 Thomas Codrington

 Co-education

 Nicolas Coeffeteau

 Coelchu

 Theodore Coelde

 St. Coemgen

 Coenred

 Coeur d'Alêne Indians

 Edward Coffin

 Robert Aston Coffin

 Cogitosus

 Diego López de Cogolludo

 Hermann Cohen

 Diocese of Coimbatore

 Diocese of Coimbra

 Jean-Baptiste Colbert

 Henry Cole

 Edward Coleman

 Henry James Coleridge

 John Colet

 Nicola Coleti

 St. Colette

 John Colgan

 Diocese of Colima

 Frédéric-Louis Colin

 Jean-Claude-Marie Colin

 Coliseum

 Diego Collado

 Collect

 Collectarium

 Collections

 Collectivism

 Diocese of Colle di Val d'Elsa

 College

 College (in Canon Law)

 Apostolic College

 Collège de France

 Collegiate

 St. Colman

 Walter Colman

 Joseph Ludwig Colmar

 Cologne

 University of Cologne

 Bl. Colomba of Rieti

 Republic of Colombia

 Archdiocese of Colombo

 Matteo Realdo Colombo

 Colonia (1)

 Colonna

 Egidio Colonna

 Giovanni Paolo Colonna

 Vittoria Colonna

 Colonnade

 Colophon

 Colorado

 Colossæ

 Epistle to the Colossians

 Liturgical Colours

 St. Columba of Terryglass

 St. Columba

 St. Columba, Abbot of Iona

 St. Columbanus

 Columbia University

 Christopher Columbus

 Diocese of Columbus

 Column

 Diocese of Comacchio

 Comana

 Diocese of Comayagua

 François Combefis

 Daniel Comboni

 St. Comgall

 Commandments of God

 Commandments of the Church

 Commemoration (in Liturgy)

 Commendatory Abbot

 Giovanni Francesco Commendone

 Commentaries on the Bible

 Philippe de Commines

 Commissariat of the Holy Land

 Commissary Apostolic

 Ecclesiastical Commissions

 Commodianus

 Commodus

 Brethren of the Common Life

 Philosophy of Common Sense

 Martyrs of the Paris Commune

 Communicatio Idiomatum

 Communion-Antiphon

 Communion-Bench

 Communion of Children

 The Communion of Saints

 Communion of the Sick

 Communion under Both Kinds

 Communism

 Diocese of Como

 Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement

 Compensation

 Occult Compensation

 Privilege of Competency

 Complin

 Compostela

 Compromise (in Canon Law)

 St. Conal

 St. Conan

 Conaty, Thomas James

 Concelebration

 Diocese of Concepción

 Conceptionists

 Industrial Conciliation

 Daniello Concina

 Conclave

 Concordances of the Bible

 Concordat

 The French Concordat of 1801

 Diocese of Concordia (Concordia Veneta)

 Diocese of Concordia (Corcondiensis in America)

 Concubinage

 Concupiscence

 Concursus

 Charles-Marie de la Condamine

 Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

 Condition

 Thomas Conecte

 Ecclesiastical Conferences

 Confession

 Confessor

 Confirmation

 Confiteor

 Confraternity (Sodality)

 Confucianism

 Congo Independent State and Congo Missions

 Congregatio de Auxiliis

 Congregationalism

 Congregational Singing

 Catholic Congresses

 Congrua

 Congruism

 Conimbricenses

 Giles de Coninck

 Connecticut

 John Connolly

 Pope Conon

 Conradin of Bornada

 Bl. Conrad of Ascoli

 Conrad of Hochstadt

 Conrad of Leonberg

 Conrad of Marburg

 Bl. Conrad of Offida

 St. Conrad of Piacenza

 Conrad of Saxony

 Conrad of Urach

 Conrad of Utrecht

 Florence Conry

 Ercole Consalvi

 Consanguinity (in Canon Law)

 Conscience

 Hendrik Conscience

 Consciousness

 Consecration

 Consent (in Canon Law)

 Consentius

 Conservator

 Papal Consistory

 Cuthbert Constable

 John Constable

 Constance

 Council of Constance

 Constantia

 Pope Constantine

 Diocese of Constantine (Cirta)

 Constantine Africanus

 Constantine the Great

 Constantinople

 Councils of Constantinople

 Rite of Constantinople

 Ecclesiastical Constitutions

 Papal Constitutions

 Consubstantiation

 Diocesan Consultors

 Philippe du Contant de la Molette

 Gasparo Contarini

 Giovanni Contarini

 Contemplation

 Contemplative Life

 Vincent Contenson

 Continence

 Contingent

 Contract

 The Social Contract

 Contrition

 Contumacy (in Canon Law)

 Adam Contzen

 Convent

 Convent Schools (Great Britain)

 Order of Friars Minor Conventuals

 Diocese of Conversano

 Conversi

 Conversion

 Convocation of the English Clergy

 Henry Conwell

 Archdiocese of Conza

 Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown

 William Henry Coombes

 Copacavana

 Cope

 University of Copenhagen

 Nicolaus Copernicus

 François Edouard Joachim Coppée

 Coptos

 Claude-Godefroi Coquart

 Coracesium

 Ambrose Corbie

 Monastery of Corbie

 St. Corbinian

 James Andrew Corcoran

 Michael Corcoran

 Confraternities of the Cord

 Giulio Cesare Cordara

 Charles Cordell

 Balthasar Cordier

 Diocese of Cordova (Cordubensis)

 Diocese of Cordova (Cordubensis in America)

 Juan de Cordova

 Core, Dathan, and Abiron

 Vicariate Apostolic of Corea

 Archdiocese of Corfu

 Diocese of Coria

 Corinth

 Epistles to the Corinthians

 Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

 Diocese of Cork

 School of Cork

 Maurus Corker

 Cormac MacCuilenan

 Elena Lucrezia Piscopia Cornaro

 Jean-Baptiste Corneille

 Michel Corneille (the Younger)

 Michel Corneille (the Elder)

 Pierre Corneille

 Jacob Cornelisz

 Cornelius

 Pope Cornelius

 Peter Cornelius

 Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide

 Karl Josef Rudolph Cornely

 Nicolas Cornet

 Cornice

 Abbey of Cornillon

 Giovanni Maria Cornoldi

 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

 Coronation

 Gregorio Nuñez Coronel

 Juan Coronel

 Corporal

 Corporation

 Corporation Act of 1661

 Feast of Corpus Christi

 Corpus Juris Canonici

 Fraternal Correction

 Correctories

 Michael Augustine Corrigan

 Sir Dominic Corrigan

 Corsica

 Hernando Cortés

 Giovanni Andrea Cortese

 Diocese of Cortona

 Abbey of Corvey

 Corycus

 Corydallus

 Juan de la Cosa

 Archdiocese of Cosenza

 Henry Cosgrove

 Edmund Cosin

 Cosmas

 Sts. Cosmas and Damian

 Cosmas Indicopleustes

 Cosmas of Prague

 Cosmati Mosaic

 Cosmogony

 Cosmology

 Francesco Cossa

 Lorenzo Costa

 Giovanni Domenico Costadoni

 Republic of Costa Rica

 Francis Coster

 Clerical Costume

 Maria Cosway

 Jean-Baptiste Cotelier

 Cotenna

 Cotiæum

 Pierre Coton

 Diocese of Cotrone

 Robert de Coucy

 Frederic René Coudert

 General Councils

 Evangelical Counsels

 Counterpoint

 The Counter-Reformation

 Court (in Scripture)

 William Courtenay

 Ecclesiastical Courts

 Jean Cousin

 Charles-Edmond-Henride Coussemaker

 Pierre Coustant

 Nicolas Coustou

 Diocese of Coutances

 Louis-Charles Couturier

 Diego Covarruvias

 Covenanters

 Covetousness

 Diocese of Covington

 Cowl

 Michiel Coxcie

 Michiel Coxcie

 Charles-Antoine Coysevox

 Lorenzo Cozza

 Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi

 Cracow

 Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

 Richard Crashaw

 Jean Crasset

 Mrs. Augustus Craven

 Gaspar de Crayer

 Richard Creagh

 Creation

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Sisters of Charity


Charity, Sisters of.—The various sisterhoods included under this general title are treated of below under their respective names.


Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a congregation of women with simple vows, founded in 1633 and devoted to corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Their full title is Sisters or Daughters of Charity (the founder preferred the latter term), Servants of the Sick Poor. The term "of St. Vincent de Paul" has been added to distinguish them form several communities of Sisters of Charity, animated with a similar spirit, among whom they rank in priority of origin and greatness of numbers. They have always been popularly known in France as "the Grey Sisters" from the colour of their habit, which is bluish grey, but are not to be confounded with the Grey Nuns, a community will known in Canada and New England. They are not infrequently called the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, though a recent French congregation having this saint for their patron, bears that name.

In the United States several diocesan communities who follow a modified form of the rule of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul and wear a black habit are often called the "Black Cap Sisters", while the "White Cap" or "Cornette" Sisters are those who follow the original rule and form part of the world-wide community under the direction of the superior General of the Congregation of the Mission. or Lazarists, in Paris. These latter sisters were founded by St. Vincent de Paul and the Venerable Louise de Mérillac (1591-1660), and the widow of Antoine Le Gras, known according to a quaint usage of the time as Mlle Le Gras. The need of organization in work for the poor suggested to St. Vincent the forming of a confraternity among the people of his parish. It was so successful that it spread form the rural districts to Paris, where noble ladies often found it hard to give personal care to the wants of the poor. The majority sent their servants to minister to those in need, but often the work was slighted. St. Vincent remedied this by inducing young women from the country to go to Paris and devote themselves to the service of the poor under the direction of the Ladies of Charity. These young girls formed the nucleus of a very large community of the Sisters of Charity now spread over the world, and who have done so much to make the name of St. Vincent de Paul a household work. Mlle Le Gras, who had recently devoted herself at St. Vincent's request to the superintendent of the various confraternities of charity, had charge of these young girls, who lodged at some convent or with the ladies of the confraternity. They met on Sundays at St. Vincent's house for instruction and encouragement. But after three or four years Mlle Le Gras received a few of the most promising of them at her house, where, on 29 November, 1633, she began a more systematic training in the care of the sick and in spiritual life. This is looked on as the real foundation of the community. This little snowball, as St. Vincent playfully called it , was not long in increasing, and on 31 July, 1634, St. Vincent initiated a series of conferences, extending over twenty-five years, which, written sown by the sisters, have had ever since a powerful effect in their formation.

For more than twelve years St. Vincent guided them thus without written rule or constitution and without seeking approval of them as a distinct organization. Let the work grow gradually as the needs of the times demanded, and little did he imagine the vast structure he was laying the foundation of. He used to explain that neither he nor Mlle Le Gras was the founder of the Sisters of Charity, for neither he nor she had ever thought of founding such a community. It sprang from the practical need for such organization. When the idea developed it was at variance with the notions and customs of the times. Hitherto women who publicly consecrated their lives to God's service did so in convents that cut them off from the world, but his sisters were to spend their time nursing the sick in their homes, having no monastery but the homes of the sick, their cell a hired room, their chapel the parish church, their enclosure the streets of the city or wards of the hospital, "having", as St. Vincent says in the rule he finally gave them, "no grate but the fear of God, no veil but holy modesty". After a few months spent with the sisters in her house, Mlle LeGras bound herself irrevocably by vow to the work she had undertaken, 25 March, 1634. This anniversary is religiously kept in the community, for every year the sisters make their annual vows on the feast of the Annunciation. The sisters had hitherto helped the poor and the sick in their homes, but they were now called on for hospital work. A society was formed by some ladies of rank to better the condition of the sick poor in Hotel-Dieu at Paris. A community of Augustinian nuns was in charge, but the miseries of the times had overcrowded the wards, and the revenue was inadequate. It was helpers of the ladies who in turn aided the nuns of the institution that the Sisters of Charity took up hospital work which has since become so prominent a feature in their beneficent activity. A large room near by was hired for their use, where they made delicacies for the sick and also for sale, to swell the income of the hospital. During thefirst year the labours of the ladies and sisters were blessed by seven hundred and sixty conversions, of Lutherans, Calvinists, and even of Turks wounded in sea-fights.

In May, 1636, Mlle Le Gras moved to more commodious quarters with her community. A house at La Chapelle was chosen because of its nearness to Saint-Lazare, the priory recently given to St. Vincent for the Congregation of the Priests of the Mission he had founded. Here the instruction of the poor children in religion and in elementary branches was taken up, the beginning of the widespread labour of the Sisters of Charity in teaching the children of the poor. The charge of foundlings so characteristicof St. Vincent and his sisters came to them through his finding out how miserably these tiny waifs were cared for by the State. The modern foundling asylums owe, of not their origin, at least their excellent system to the work of the Sisters of Charity. On 1 Feb., 1640, at Angers the sisters assumed complete charge of a hospital in which hitherto they had acted as aids to the charitable ladies. In 1641 the headquarters of the community was transferred to a house opposite Saint-Lazare. Here they remained until driven away by the French Revolution. In answer to their desire to be bound by vows, authorization was finally granted to four of the sisters, and these on 25 March, 1642, took simple vows for one year. A copy of these first vows is preserved in the archives of the mission in Paris and says:

During the war of the Fronde, whole provinces were reduced to the utmost destitution, and St. Vincent took upon himself the burden of relieving all this misery. In this the sisters had a large share. What they did in Paris is seen from St. Vincent's letters: "they shelter from 800 to 900 women; they distribute soup every day to 1300 bashful poor. In St. Paul's parish they aid 5000 poor, and altogether 1400 persons have for the last six months depended on them for their means of subsistence". At the request of the Queen of Poland, a former Lady of Charity, three sisters were sent to her dominions. Here for the first time the sisters appear on the field of battle. This is a ministry often given by them since, and which has secured for then the title of "Angels of the Battlefield", some dying "sword in hand", as St. Vincent used to style it. Their usefulness opened the eyes of many a dying soldier to the light of the Faith, and inspired the wish to die in the religion which produced such heroism.

While the sisters were on the battlefield in Poland, St. Vincent's daughters took up a new work in the care of the aged and infirm at the House of the Name of Jesus, the pioneer of those homes for the aged so multiplied in our day through a kindred community, the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the same time a hospital for the insane was committed to their care, practically completing the list of human miseries to which they brought alleviation.

On the death of Mlle Le Gras and St. Vincent de Paul there were, in 1660, more than forty houses of the Sisters of Charity in France, and the sick poor were cared for in their own dwellings in twenty-six parishes in Paris. As years went on their numbers grew. Switzerland received the sisters in 1750. In 1778 they were established in Piedmont, whence they spread over Italy. The Spanish community was started by six sisters from Paris in 1790. In 1789 France had 426 houses; the sisters numbered about 6000 in Europe. At the very beginning of the Reign of Terror, the motherhouse of the sisters was invaded by the revolutionists, who had attacked Saint-Lazare across the street the night before, but the sight of this band of angels of mercy on their knees in the chapel, moved their assailants to leave them unmolested. In August, 1792, the sisters were ordered to quit the motherhouse; and the end of 1793 saw their community disbanded officially, though the superior, Sister Antoinette Duleau, strive to keep them together as far as practicable. As soon as the Consular government was established, in 1801 the society was recalled by an edict setting forth the excellence of their work and authorizing Citoyenne Duleay, the former superior, to reorganize. Their greatest growth has been in France during the nineteenth century. Persecution has driven them from all their schools for the poor and from most of their works of mercy, but this has given hundreds of new labourers to the foreign missions. During the last hundred years their growth has been extraordinary. They have gone to Austria, Portugal, Hungary, England, Scotland, Ireland, North and south America. The Orientals call them "The Swallows of Allah" from their cornettes, and they have houses in Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Damascus, Persia, Abyssiania, and China. Their number is about 25,000.

The first house in the province of the British Isles was opened at Drogheda, Ireland, in 1855. The first house in England in Sheffield in 1857; and in Scotland at Lanark in 1860. The numbers of foundations in 1907 was: England, 46 houses and 407 sisters; Ireland, 13 houses and 134 sisters; Scotland, 8 houses and 62 sisters, making a total of 67 houses and 603 sisters, besides 20 aspirants at the Central House, Mill Hill, London. The principal works under the care of the sisters are as follows, several of these works being carried on in the one house: orphanages, 23; industrial schools, 7; public elementary schools, 24; normal school, 1; traininghomes, 7; homes for working girls, 2; home for women ex-convicts, 1; asylum for insane women, 1; hospitals, 8; houses from which the sisters visit the poor, in which they have soup-kitchens, take charge of guilds and do various other works for the poor, 35.

In the United Stated the first community was started by Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1809. She arranged to have sisters come over from the motherhouse in Paris 1810 to affiliate her young community at Emmitsburg, Maryland to the daughters of St. Vincent, but Napoleon forbade the departure of the sisters for America. She had received, however, from Bishop Flaget, the rules of the Sisters of Charity, and put them in practice with some modifications which were suggested. Houses were founded in Philadelphia and New York, when through the request of Archbishop Hughes of New York, in 1846, the majority of the sisters labouring there were released from the Emmitsburg jurisdiction and formed an independent community following the same rule.

Four years after the withdrawal of the New York sisters, Mother Seton's community at Emmitsburg was received under the jurisdiction of the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity in France and assumed the French habit and St. Vincent's rule in its entirety. Their general motherhouse in140 Rue du Bac, Paris, and their central house at St. Joseph's Academy, Emmitsburg, Maryland. They have establishments in the Archdioceses of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and the Dioceses of Albany, Alton, Buffalo, Dallas, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Harrisburg, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mobile, Monterey, and Los Angeles, Nashville, Natchez, Richmond, Rochester, St. Joseph, San Antonio, Syracuse, Wilmington, Puerto Rico, and the Vicariate of North Carolina, where there are 1704 sisters in charge of these institutions: academy, 1; hospitals, 38; orphanages, 28; infant asylums, 14; industrial schools, 5; parochial schools, 33; asylums and schools, 6; insane asylums, 5.

The growth of St. Vincent's community has been gradual, and the slowness of their founder in giving it a written rule allowed that rule to have a practicability that has made it as fitted for the democratic notions of our day as for the aristocratic ideas of the old regime. But this is most of all because its animating principle is the saying of Christ, "So long as you do it to the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me". In 1646 the approbation of the Archbishop of Paris was asked by St. Vincent for his community, and this was granted in 1655. Though numerous privileges have been granted to the sisters by various popes, no approbation has ever been asked from the Holy See because their founder wished this community to be a lay one with only private vows. Hence the canon law concerning religious communities does not apply to them. Their confessor is the pastor or secular priest approved by the bishop. The interior administration is subject only to superior general. or his delegates. while their interior works are of course under the jurisdiction of the bishop. This has been the case from the very beginning, and the Holy See has on several occasions ratified their long established custom, notably in 1882.

The rule and constitution have remained unchanged since the days of St. Vincent. To his successor, as Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, the sisters vow obedience. He ratifies the election of the mother general divided into several provinces governed by a visitatrix and a director, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, who are appointed by the central government. There is no distinction among the sisters; those from the highest as from the humblest walks of life associate together as servants of the poor. The hour of rising is everywhere at four o'clock; then followed meditation and Mass and usually Communion. At noon there is their particular examination of conscience which is made again before supper. In the afternoon there are spiritual reading and another meditation. No office is recited, for "Charity is your office", said St. Vincent. All the rest of the time is given to the poor. He used to tell them that when they left prayer to wait on the poor they were leaving God for God. After three months of approbation the candidate is sent to the "seminary", where she is trained for six months and then admitted to the habit, which is put on without any ceremony whatever, and after a trial of five years she is permitted to take the four annual vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the service of the poor. The dress is that of peasant women of the neighborhood of Paris at the date of the foundation, a grey habit with wide sleeves and a long grey apron. The head-dress was at first a small linen cap, but to this was added in the early days the white linen cornette. At first it was used only in the country, being in fact the headdress of the Ile de France district, but in 1685 its use became general. Seven sisters were martyred during the French Revolution, and ten laid down their lives for the Faith in 1870 at T'ien-tsin, among whom was an Irishwoman, Sister Alice O'Sullivan. But no one can count the numbers that have died martyrs to duty on the battlefield, or among the plague-stricken, or in the hidden ways of continuous hard work for the poor. In 1830 at the motherhouse of the sisters, Rue du Bac, Paris, Sister Catherine Labouré (declared venerable in 1907) had a vision of the Blessed Virgin, who urged her to have a medal made and distributed, since well known as the miraculous medal, through the wonders wrought in favour of those who wear it devoutly. Pope Leo XIII granted a special feast of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal to the double family of St. Vincent. The scapular of the Passion, or red scapular was revealed to Sister Apollone Andreveau in 1846 and approved by Pope Pius IX in 1847.

B. Randolph.


Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Motherhouse at Mt. St. Vincent-on Hudson, New York; not to be confused with the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul founded earlier).—In 1817 Sister Rose White, Cecilia O'Conway and Elizabeth Boyle were sent by Mother Seton to found a community of the Emmitsburg Sisters of Charity in New York. It was the second branch of the new American institute, the first being at Philadelphia (1814). They took charge of the orphanage, a small wooden building at Prince and Mott Streets. In the early thirties, a young ladies' academy, St. Mary's, begun shortly afterwards, was located in Grand Street, and then transferred to East Broadway, where three generations of the young women of the old East Side of New York, now the heart of its Ghetto, were educated.

Meanwhile at the motherhouse at Emmitsburg negotiations were in progress for affiliation with the sisters of Charity in France. In consequence there had been for some time a tendency to abandon certain customs observed there, because these changes were required by the French superiors; for example, the sisters in charge of boys' asylums were everywhere to be withdrawn. The measure threatened at that period the very existence of the New York orphanage. At this juncture, also, sisters could not be obtained from Emmitsburg to carry on the work of a projected and much-needed hospital in New York, the St. Vincent's of today. The correspondence that ensued between Archbishop Hughes and Father Deluol, the director of the sisterhood, in relation to these matters, resulted in a notification that all the sisters were to be recalled to Emmitsburg from New York in July of the same year. This and other circumstances proved to the archbishop the necessity to supply the needs of the diocese. In 1846, therefore, aproposition to that effect was made to the Emmitsburg sisters, and the matter was amicably arranged. Those who wished to continue in New York were dispensed from the vow of obedience to their former superior, and of the forty-five sisters than in the diocese, thirty-five remained (8 Dec., 1846).

Sister Elizabeth Boyle became in December, 1846, the first superior of the new community. The novitiate of the New York community was at once opened at St. James's Academy, 35 East Broadway. In the fourteen year it was removed to the new motherhouse on an state purchased at Mcgown's Pass, situated within the limits of the present Central Park. Here, in 1847,the Academy of Mount Saint Vincent had its foundation, In 1849 the affiliation of the Emmitsburg Sisters with the community in France took placeand in the same year a band of sisters was sent from Mount Saint Vincent to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The mission was most successful and in 1856, under Mother Xavier, a local community was formed of the sisters then labouring in the Diocese of Newark. Meanwhile in 1857 the "Old Mount" having been absorbed in Central Park, a new "Mount" rose on the east bank of the Hudson just below Yonkers, fourteen miles from the heart of the city. Here today are to be found the motherhouse of the community, the novitiate with a finely equipped training-school, and the Academy of Mount Saint Vincent.

The superiors succeeding Mother Elizabeth Boyle have been, Mother Jerome Ely, for over fifty years a prominent factor in New York's Catholic educational and charitable work; Mother Angela Hughes, sister of archbishop Hughes; Mother Regina Lawless, Mother Ambrosia Sweeney, Mother Rosina Wightman, Mother Mary Rose Dolan, Mother Melita McClancy and Mother Jesepha Cullen. Some idea of the growth in numbers of this community and of the importance of its present activities may be learned from the following statistics for 1908. It counts about 1400 members who conduct missions in the Dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn and Harrisburg as well as in the Archdiocese of New York. These establishments comprise 20 academies; 73 parochial schools with about 50,000 pupils; 5 asylums with 1800 orphans; high schools approved by the State; several homes containing 600 children; 11 hospitals in which 12,000 patients were treated during the year; 1 home accommodating 270 aged poor; an industrial school and a protectory with 1620 girls; a foundling asylum with 3340 children and 554 needy and homeless mothers; 2 small day nurseries caring for 100 little ones, and a retreat for the insane with 150 patients.

The superior general is the Archbishop of New York, and the community is governed by a council consisting of the mother superior and her three assistants. all residing at the motherhouse. to which the seventy-four missions are subordinate. These sisters retain the black cap and religious dress adopted by Mother Seton when she founded the American Sisters of Charity. They follow the Rule of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul with some slight modifications. On 20 June, 1847, the Holy See extended to them all the privileges, Indulgences, and other spiritual graces already granted to the community of the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg.

Mary Ambrose Dunphy.


Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth (Mother-house at Convent Station, near Morristown, New Jersey).—A community founded at Newark, in 1859, by Mother Mary Xavier Mehegan, who for twelve years previously had been a member of the Sisters of Charity, of St. Vincent de Paul in New York. In 1858 Bishop Bayley, of Newark, applied to the superior at Mount Saint Vincent's, New York, for sisters to form a separate mother-house in his diocese. Sister Mary Xavier, who was in charge of St. Mary's, Newark, was at his request appointed superior of the new foundation, with Sister Mary Catherine Nevin assistant. The habit and the constitutions of the Sisters of Charity in New York were retained. On 29 September, 1859, the new community was formally opened in St. Mary's, Newark, the first superior general being the Reverend Bernard J. McQuaid, later Bishop of Rochester, New York. In less than a year the first Catholic hospital in New Jersey was opened at St. Mary's, Newark. On 2 July, 1860, the mother-house was removed to the old Chegaray mansion at Madison, which had recently been vacated by Seton Hall College. An academy was opened the same year and named St. Elizabeth's, in honour of Mother Elizabeth Seton, the foundress of the American Sisters of Charity. Bishop Bayley had strongly advocated a change in the head-dress of the sisters. This, however, was not carried into effect until 1874, when the black cap adopted by Mother Seton was replaced by a white one with a black veil. To accommodate the rapidly growing community the mother-house and academy were removed in 1880 to Convent Station, near Morristown.

The principal work of the sisters is teaching, but they also labour for the poor and the sick in various charitable institutions. According to the report for 1907, there are 1073 of these sisters in the Dioceses of Newark, Trenton, and Hartford, and the Archdioceses of New York and Boston. They have one college, six academies, one preparatory school for small boys, sixty-seven parochial schools with 40,100 pupils, five orphanages, five hospitals, one home for incurables, one home for the aged, one foundling asylum, and two day nurseries. Their principal educational centre is at Convent Station, where there are schools of primary, grammar, high school, and college grades. The college course was founded in 1899 for the higher education of women. Students are admitted by examination or by certificates from approved academies or high schools. The courses of study are partially elective and lead to the degrees of B.A. and M.A. In 1907 the college library contained 20,000 volumes. The college has no endowment. In connection with the college department is a School of Pedagogy requiring two years of college work for admission. The High School, the School of Pedagogy, and the College are registered by the New Jersey State Board of Education and by the Regents of the University of the State of New York. At the mother-house of the community is a normal training school for the young sisters.

FLYNN, The Catholic Church in New Jersey (Morristown, 1904); Catholic Directory (1908).

Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth.


Sisters of Charity (St. John, New Brunswick), founded in 1854 by Bishop, subsequently Archbishop, Connolly. Two years before this the bishop had sent Miss Honora Conway (Mother Mary Vincent) to the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity in New York to prepare for the foundation of a local community. The cholera epidemic of 1854 left many orphans in St. John and other parts of the province. When Miss Conway had finished her novitiate she returned to St. John and in a short time was joined by four other young ladies for whom Bishop Connolly drew up rules, and thus the congregation began. The care the orphans and aged poor, and the Christian education of the young is the work undertaken and successfully carried out by these sisters. In St. John they have an orphanage for girls, a home for the aged, and at Silver Falls a Boys' Industrial School. The sisters teach in the public schools, and the entire education of the Catholic girls of the city is in their hands. From their High School the pupils enter the Provincial Normal School and the New Brunswick University. The congregation has houses and schools in many places in the diocese and also takes charge of an orphanage in the Diocese of Prince Albert. The mother-house and novitiate of this congregation are at St. John, N.B.


Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a congregation begun by five young women in Dublin, Ireland, 8 December, 1831, with the purpose of devoting themselves to the service of God in the education of children. They opened a school in North Ann Street, Dublin, on 19 March, 1832. Eager for more complete self-sacrifice, they resolved to leave their native land, and chose Philadelphia, U.S.A., for their field of labour, arriving there friendless and penniless, on 4 September, 1833. The Reverend T. J. Donoghoe, pastor of St. Michael's Church, who had been seeking suitable teachers for his parochial school, heard of these strangers, and with the permission of Archbishop Kenrick, employed them, and drew up a rule of life for their approval. As they organized themselves into a community under this rule, Father Donoghoe is rightly called the founder of this sisterhood with Mary Frances Clarke the first superior, and Margaret Mann the assistant and mistress of novices. On 1 November, 1833, they received the title, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1843 the congregation left the flourishing vineyard of the East, to do pioneer work, and accepted the urgent invitation of Bishop Loras of Dubuque, Iowa, to settle in his diocese whither he also called Father Donoghoe to be his vicar-general. The mother-house of the congregation has since that time been located in Dubuque. A decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars approved the rules in 1877, and on 26 April, 1885, Leo XIII confirmed this. The work of the sisters is that of education; they engage in no other. They had in September, 1907, one thousand members having under their direction 25,000 children.

Mary Cecilia Dougherty.


Sisters of Charity of Providence.—The community of Sisters of Providence, or, more accurately, Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor, was founded in Montreal, Canada, by Bishop Bourget and Madame Jean Baptiste Gamelin (Marie Emélie Eugénie Tavernier), 25 March, 1843. With the approbation of the religious and civil authorities Madame Gamelin had for some time been sheltering in her own house a number of infirm and poor old women. After a voyage to Europe Bishop Bourget wished to bring to Montreal some French Sisters of Charity, but the project came to nothing, and he decided to appeal to the young women of his own diocese. On 25 March, 1843, in the chapel of the first asylum in Montreal seven sisters received the religious habit at his hands. The new institution developed rapidly. Its object is to provide for the poor and sick spiritual and temporal relief, to shelter children and the aged, to visit the homes of the poor and the ill, to shelter the infirm and the homeless, to maintain dispensaries for the needy, and to instruct the young. The rule of the Institute of Providence was definitively approved by Leo XIII 12 September, 1900.

The community numbers about 1600 religious with more than eighty establishments, of which the principal in Montreal are the mother-house and the Gamelin Asylum, the Longue-Pointe Refuge, the Hospital for Incurables, the Home for Deaf Mutes, the Bourget Asylum, and the Auclair Asylum. Outside the Diocese of Montreal there are foundations of these sisters in the dioceses of Quebec, Ottawa, Trois-Rivières, Saint-Hyacinthe, New Westminster, Valleyfield, Joliette, Vancouver, Alberta, and Saskatchewan in Canada; and in San Francisco, Oregon City, Burlington, Great Falls, Helena, Boise, and Manchester in the United States. The general administrative body, which is located at the mother-house in Montreal, is composed of the superior general, four assistants, a secretary, and a treasurer. The community comprises seven provinces: Montreal, Hochelaga, Joliette, Trois-Rivières, Washington, Montana, and Oregon.

Vie de Mère Gamelin, by a Religious of her Order (Montreal, 1900); AUCLAIR, Vie de Mère Caron (Montreal, 1908).

Elie J. Auclair.


Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, a congregation founded in 1803 by Canon Triest, who was known as "the St. Vincent de Paul of Belgium", for he was the founder as well of the Brothers of St. John of God, and the Sisters of the Infant Jesus. When curé of Lovendeghem he laid the foundations of this congregation, and gave up his living to devote himself to training its members. He obtained the first papal recognition in 1806 and in 1816 he went to Rome to get the final approbation, which he received by Brief on September 9th of that year. The mother-house is at Ghent and there are forty branch-houses. The congregation is one of the largest in Belgium. In 1889 some of the sisters at the request of the Belgian Government went to the Congo Missions in Africa, and founded several houses there. In 1895 they went to India and opened two boarding-schools in the Punjab, and one in Ceylon. In 1888, at the invitation of the late Cardinal Vaughan, the sisters went to England and founded a large convent at Tottington near Manchester. Their principal work is teaching in their training-colleges, boarding and day-schools, and orphanages; they also nurse the infirm; they are inclosed and there are no lay-sisters. The interior spirit is one of simplicity, devotion and zeal for the salvation of souls. The congregation has over a thousand members. The habit is white with a black scapular for the professed, the novices wearing a white veil and scapular. The novitiate lasts a year.

FELLER, Biog. univ. (1848), VIII; STEELE, Convents of Great Britain (London, 1892); HEIMBUCHER, Die Orden und Kongregationen (Paderborn, 1907).

Francesca M. Steele.


Sisters of Charity of St. Louis.—This congregation was founded at Vannes in Brittany, in 1803, by Madame Molé, née de Lamoignan, for the education of poor girls, at the suggestion of Bishop de Pancemont, of Vannes, who was her director. In 1805 Pius VII blessed the undertaking, but the final approbation of Rome was not obtained till 1840. The founder was elected superior for life as Mère St. Louis. There were at first no lay sisters, but finding this plan did not answer, Oblates of St. Louis were selected to act in this capacity, but they are not allowed to take vows until they have been ten years in the community; they then, like the choir-sisters, take a fourth vow of stability, when they have reached the age of forty. The interior spirit of the congregation is one of penitence and mortification. Its work is the education of poor girls who live in orphanages attached to their convents, and to support these orphanages the sisters have pay schools. The congregation is under the government of a mother-general and the bishop, or a superior appointed by the bishop. The sisters had twenty houses in France, most of which were in Brittany, but all their schools were closed by the Government; the greater number of the sisters in consequence went to Canada, where they met with a hospitable reception, and established fourteen houses. In 1898 they went to England, and opened a house at Minehead in Dorsetshire; they have since made a foundation at Glastonbury and another at Frome. The novitiate lasts two years.

STEELE, Convents of Great Britain (London, 1902).

Francesca. M. Steele.


Sisters of Charity of St. Paul.—These sisters who now add (of Chartres) to their title to distinguish them from another congregation of the same name, were founded at Chartres in 1704 by Monsignor Maréchaut, a theologian of the Cathedral of Chartres, assisted by Mlle de Tilly and Mlle de Tronche. Their first house formerly belonged to a sabot-maker, and this gave them the name of "Les Soeurs Sabotiers", by which they were originally known. They devote themselves to teaching, nursing, visiting the poor and taking care of orphans, the old and infirm, and the insane. There are no lay-sisters, but every sister must be prepared to undertake any kind of work. The interior spirit is a love of sacrifice and labor for the spiritual and temporal good of others. The postulancy lasts from six to nine months, the novitiate a year, after which the sisters take vows annually for three years, and then perpetual simple vows. The congregation was dispersed under the Commune at the French Revolution, but it was restored by Napoleon I, who gave the sisters a monastery at Chartres, which originally belonged to the Jacobins, from which they became known as "Les Soeurs de St. Jacques". They settled in England in 1847 at the invitation of Cardinal Wiseman. In 1907 they had fifty-six houses in various towns. Their work in England is mainly educational, schools being attached to all their houses; the English branch is under the government of a mother general. Until 1902 they had over two hundred and fifty houses in France where, besides various kinds of schools, they undertook asylums for the blind, the aged, and the insane, hospitals, dispensaries, and crèches. Since that date more than one hundred and sixty of these schools have been closed, also thirty of the hospitals, military and civil, in the French colonies, three convents at Blois and a hospice at Brie. On the other hand they have in the meanwhile opened five or six hospitals in the French colonies, two hospitals and three elementary schools in the Philippines, and three educational houses in Siam.

STEELE, Convents of Great Britain (London, 1902).

Francesca M. Steele.


Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of Mercy, a congregation founded in Holland in 1832 by the Rev. John Zwijsen, pastor of Tilburg, aided by Mary M. Leijsen, for the instruction of children and the betterment of a people deprived of spiritual aid by the disastrous effects of the Reformation. The See of Utrecht had been vacant for about three hundred years when, on the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in Holland in 1853, Bishop John Zwijsen, of Gerra, was made Archbishop of Utrecht and Primate of Holland. He found no Catholic institutions for the education of girls in this vast diocese, neither were there any teaching orders, with the exception of his humble congregation. The founder's accession to the See gave fresh impetus to his cherished work, and from this time the congregation spread rapidly throughout Holland and Belgium. There is now hardly a city of the Netherlands that has not one or more of its communities. Among these institutions are homes for the aged and infirm, the blind, the mutes and also hospitals. The Rules were approved by Gregory XVI in 1843, and Pius IX approved the congregation in 1848. About the middle of the eighteenth century, when the cholera was raging in Holland, the heroic charity of the sisters won the recognition of King William III who conferred decorations of honour on the congregation. It has three houses in England devoted to school and hospital work. In 1874 the first house in the United States was founded at Baltic, Connecticut, where there is a Parochial school and an academy for young ladies. The congregation has other houses at Willimantic and Taftville where the same work is carried on. In 1907 St. Joseph's community of Willimantic donated, one of the convent buildings for a city hospital, which from the outset proved a success. In 1894 the congregation took charge of the leper settlement, city and military hospitals of Paramaribo, South America; and in East India, the sisters are doing missionary work among the natives. In December, 1907, this congregation had 2621 professed members, 488 aspirants and novices and 102 houses. The number of schoolchildren enrolled was estimated at 54,300; the sick, aged and infirm cared for 3446.

Mother Aloysio.