Anything of Which a Woman is Capable: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 1—The Foundations by Mary M. McGlone, and: Called Forth by the Dear Neighbor: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 2—from 1860–2010 by Mary M. McGlone

Abstract

Reviewed by: Anything of Which a Woman is Capable: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 1—The Foundations by Mary M. McGlone, and: Called Forth by the Dear Neighbor: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 2—from 1860–2010 by Mary M. McGlone Mary Helen Kashuba SSJ Anything of Which a Woman is Capable: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 1—The Foundations. By Mary M. McGlone, CSJ. U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, 2017. 547 pp. $21.99. Called Forth by the Dear Neighbor: A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, Volume 2—from 1860–2010. By Mary M. Glone, CSJ. U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, 2020. 458 pp. $24.99. These two volumes cover a period of nearly 400 years, from the founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1650 to their presence in the United States during the early years of the twenty-first century. Pioneers among non-cloistered religious, the Sisters of St. Joseph originated in Le Puy, France and spread to the United States in 1836. Their story is dramatic, narrated in many gripping details by Mary McGlone. She follows them from their humble beginnings in a French orphanage through the log cabins of the American mid-west to well-established motherhouses across the United States. [End Page 70] Volume I begins with mid-seventeenth-century France and explores both the traditional and newly discovered and somewhat controversial sources of the congregational foundations. After spreading throughout southeastern France, the sisters' work was halted by the French Revolution. Mother St. John Fontbonne restored the congregation in Lyon in 1808 and sent eight sisters to St. Louis, Missouri in 1836. Their story during the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century occupies the rest of this volume. It is a story of courage and determination, along with conflict and frustration. In the mid-nineteenth century, America was mission territory for the Catholic Church. McGlone paints a vivid picture of settlers in need of religious education and clergy determined to offer it to them. The First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852 strongly urged the establishment of Catholic schools, and bishops strove to enforce it by recruiting women religious. At their invitation, sisters moved frequently to new assignments. Within the first two decades of their arrival, the Sisters of St. Joseph went to Philadelphia in 1847, to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1851, Wheeling, West Virginia in 1853, and Canandaigua, New York in 1854. From there they continued to move across the United States as far as California in 1912, and eventually to missions abroad. The author notes two major challenges that faced the sisters: personnel and finances. After the first sisters came from France, the American Sisters of St. Joseph were on their own. Local women slowly came to join them, often opening new missions with little training either in religious life or in the classroom. Their numbers were always insufficient to fill the repeated invitations they received. In addition, their accommodations seldom provided the necessities, if at all. Yet these pioneer women rose to the occasion, many becoming leaders in new foundations, establishing schools, orphanages, and hospitals, and attracting more young women to the congregation. Another problem that faced these pioneers was their relationship with the clergy. The Constitutions of the congregation specified the local bishop as their primary superior. However, the degree of his authority [End Page 71] differed according to the various versions of the rule. It also depended on the bishop or pastor's interpretation. Some congregations, notably Carondelet and Philadelphia, obtained papal approval of their Constitutions, which gave them relative independence. Others chose to remain diocesan communities. Some enjoyed harmonious relations with the local clergy. However, the stories of conflicts between superiors and clergy provide suspenseful reading, which McGlone amplifies with numerous quotations from letters and memoirs. The outcome is sometimes surprising! In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was not unusual for the sisters to move back and forth from one diocese to another. They went...