History

Most Rev. John England, picture property of Diocesan Archives

    The Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy, one of the first eight permanent congregations of women religious founded in the United States, was established in Charleston, SC, in December, 1829, by the Most Reverend John England, first Bishop of the Diocese.  The first four members, Mary and Honora O’Gorman, their fifteen year old niece, Teresa Barry, natives of Ireland, and the American born Mary Elizabeth Burke, met Bishop England in Baltimore while he was attending the first Provincial Council of Catholic Bishops, and expressed their willingness to form a religious community under his direction.

          Bishop England called the institute “The Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy” but patterned it on the Sisters of Charity established by Mother Seton in Emmitsburg, MD.  In a letter to his friend Judge William Gaston of North Carolina, dated February 25, 1830, England wrote:

          “The Sisters whom I am endeavoring to establish will not be a band of those at Emmitsburg nor dependent on them, as I do not wish to make my institutions depend upon Superiors over whom I have neither control or influence.  Hence I shall try what can, within this diocese, be done upon the same principle.”

     The Bishop gave the sisters a simple rule based upon the rule of Saint Vincent de Paul.   Oral tradition maintains that the original habit came from Emmitsburg.  This dress and bonnet, very similar to Mother Seton’s, was worn by our sisters from 1830 until 1932.  At the time of Bishop England’s death, April 11, 1842, the community numbered nineteen who were conducting an orphanage, an academy for girls from middle class homes, and a school for free black children.  When yellow fever and cholera epidemics occurred, schools were closed and the sister teachers became sister nurses.  They cared for the sick in their homes and in temporary relief hospitals.

     On several occasions before his death Bishop England spoke of writing a Constitution for “his sisters” based upon that of the “Sisters at Emmitsburg”. The task, however, fell to the Most Reverend Ignatius Reynolds, the second Bishop of Charleston.   Reynolds, a native of Kentucky who knew the Emmitsburg Sisters and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, based the Constitution he wrote for the Community upon Bishop England’s Rules and upon those of the Sisters of Charity in America.  This document guided the lives, prayer and work of the sisters from 1844 until 1949.  In that year (1949) the Congregation adopted a new Constitution and a new name, the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy.  The insertion of the word “charity”, was intended to identify the congregation with other religious institutes whose lives are based upon the rule of St. Vincent de Paul and its American adaptations.

     The Constitutions of 1844 enabled the Sisters to elect their own officers.  Sister Teresa Barry, one of the original members, who was elected Mother Superior, held that office for a total of thirty-nine years during the nineteenth century.  What a Mother Foundress is to other religious communities, Teresa Barry is for the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy.

     Mother Teresa guided the Community during the Civil War.  Under her leadership sisters staffed a Confederate Hospital in Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, VA.  Others moved inland to Sumter, SC with the orphans and boarders while Charleston was being bombarded.  There they founded St. Joseph’s Academy, a day and boarding school, which continued to operate until 1929.  The remainder of the Community stayed in Charleston, visiting soldiers of both armies in the prisons and hospitals, and teaching whenever possible.  After the war, in gratitude for the care given to the Union soldiers, the United States Congress granted an appropriation of twelve thousand dollars ($12,000.00) which helped rebuild the Motherhouse/Orphanage in Charleston and enabled the sisters to resume their pre-war ministries.  The Community also received financial assistance from “carpetbag” governments in control of the city and state legislatures during the Reconstruction Era.

1929

     In the second fifty years of its history, 1880 – 1929, the congregation doubled in membership and broadened the scope of its ministries.  In 1882, as health care moved from home to hospital, the Community established Saint Francis Xavier Hospital in Charleston, and, in 1900, opened a School for Nurses.   The establishment of parochial schools in the Diocese led the Community to close the Academies in Charleston and Sumter and place more sisters in parish schools throughout South Carolina.

     From the 1930s through the 1950s many sisters served in the summer vacation camps sponsored by the Diocese of Charleston which offered religious education to those Catholic children who did not attend parochial schools.  During the academic year the sisters taught many of these children in Sunday School and CCD programs.  In the 1940s and 1950s the Community accepted invitations from the Bishops of Trenton and Camden, New Jersey to open missions in their respective dioceses.  Sisters taught religion in Highstown, NJ, from 1947 until 1954, and staffed parish elementary schools in Gibbstown and Middlesex, NJ for twenty-one and thirty years respectively.

     At the request of Bishop Emmet Walsh in 1938, the Community opened Divine Savior Hospital in York, SC to serve the rural poor in a predominantly non-Catholic area.  The Bishop’s belief that Catholic Hospitals broke down prejudice proved correct.  Not only did the hospital grow, but the parish of Divine Savior originated on its premises.  In 1961, a Nursing Home was added.  Simultaneously, St. Francis Xavier Hospital in Charleston grew and expanded its services.  Among these was the establishment of a social service agency popularly called the Neighborhood House.   Begun in 1915 as an entirely charitable organization, to provide home nursing care for the sick poor, and to assist the needy, it continued in operation under the auspices of the Congregation until the mid-1960s when Catholic Charities took over.  In 1965, the Diocese, through Catholic Charities, assumed the responsibility of caring for the orphans and children from broken homes.  However the sisters continued to work in the Charleston Home for Children until it was closed in 1990.

     The Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy have always been a diocesan congregation.   When Georgia and North Carolina were part of the diocese, sisters were sent to establish convents in Savannah and Wilmington.  However, when these states were separated from Charleston to create new dioceses, the local communities became independent of the Motherhouse in Charleston.  Ties of friendship among the sisters remained, and even today the Sisters of Mercy in Savannah, GA and in Belmont, NC (now Sisters of Mercy of the Americas) continue to acknowledge their Charleston roots.

     The Motherhouse is located on James Island on a tract of land overlooking Charleston Harbor.  It is simultaneously a home, administrative headquarters, and a Center of Spirituality.   In 1989 the Congregation transferred sponsorship of its hospitals to the Bon Secours Hospital System and established an Outreach Facility providing direct service to the poor and elderly on Johns Island, James Island and Wadmalaw Island.   Sisters also serve in the diocesan parochial schools, various parish ministries, and ministries of spiritual direction and pastoral counseling.