Poor servants of Jesus Christ

Maria Hilf monastery in Dernbach

The poor servants of Jesus Christ ( Latin Ancillae Domini Jesu Christi , abbreviation : ADJC ; also: Dernbacher Sisters ) are a Catholic religious order or congregation under papal law . It was founded by Maria Katharina Kasper, who was canonized on October 14, 2018 , in Dernbach (Westerwald) in the Diocese of Limburg . The community grew out of a group founded around 1845. In 1851 she received her religious dress from the Bishop of Limburg and he also accepted her vows. The main areas of activity of the sisters are nursing, child care, upbringing and education, and pastoral service. The mother house, Maria Hilf monastery, is located in Dernbach. Here is the seat of the Generalate for the entire community as well as the Provincialate for Germany.

initial situation

The founder of the Poor Maidservants was born in the Westerwald , which was shaped by pauperism and the effects of the Napoleonic wars . Agriculture was made difficult by the harsh climate and the poorly productive soils. The real division fragmented the agricultural areas. The economic hardship forced many farmers and craftsmen to work part-time in the travel trade or as migrant workers , and child trafficking also occurred. Small children and the sick were largely left to their own devices, because everyone else had to work. In some places up to 40 percent of the population appeared on official lists of the poor. Overall, the religious motivation to take on the fate of one's neighbor was formative for the Duchy of Nassau. The spectrum ranged from the founder of the deaconess movement Theodor Fliedner (originally from Eppstein / Taunus) to Katharina Kasper .

Kasper experienced the Westerwald pauperism in her own family: Her brother fell ill on a trade trip and died. Her father's first wife - and multiple mother - died early. Her special focus was on the health care and education of orphans, who at that time were mainly housed in orphanages and workhouses.

Development of the religious community

Duchy of Nassau (from the founding of the community to 1866)

Katharina Kasper was deeply religious. She was touched by the plight of the people who remained in the village. She herself was involved in the daily livelihood by helping in her parents' farm and with her father's sideline as a forest worker. After his death in 1842 she hired herself as a day laborer and knocked e.g. B. stones for road construction. In her little free time, she visited the sick, ran errands and looked after children. Other local young women also joined her.

In 1845 she founded a charitable association whose members cared for the sick and abandoned in the village and looked after children. From 1846 the Bishop of Limburg Peter Joseph Blum became interested in her work and there were personal meetings with Kasper, which initially remained without official consequences, probably also because there were many similar foundations at that time, often with only a short lifespan. In 1848 the association built its own house with the support of residents of Dernbach, in which four members of the association lived. Katharina Kasper persisted in conversation with Blum, whereupon the bishop gave official approval for the association to live together in the house according to fixed rules on January 21, 1850.

On August 15, 1851, Blum finally accepted the religious vows of Katharina Kaspers and her four companions in the parish church of St. Bonifatius zu Wirges . The vows were valid for eight years. The bishop also gave them their own costume on the occasion. Katharina received the name of the new community - it is a cooperative in the public sense - in prayer at the Heilborn Chapel, the Marian shrine in Dernbach . Like the Blessed Mother, she and her sisters wanted to serve as the Lord's handmaid to all those in need and to serve Christ in them; therefore they called themselves poor servants of Jesus Christ .

The young community held its first retreat in March 1852 in the Wirges rectory. The master of the exercises was the superior of the Redemptorists , Father Eichelsbacher from the Bornhofen monastery . During this retreat the sisters were given their own religious names. Katharina Kasper took the name Maria and is called Mother Maria as the founder . Katharina Schönberger (Dernbach * 1816; † May 11, 1890 ibid) became Sister Theresia, Anna Maria Müller (Dernbach * September 18, 1826; † March 20, 1865 ibid) became sister Elisabeth, Elisabeth Haas became sister Agnes and Elisabeth Meuser ( Mengerskirchen * March 3, 1829; † January 30, 1875 Frankfurt / Main) became sister Klara. On June 30, 1852, the poor servants received an extended rule, which regulated in particular the nursing of the sick in the neighboring towns and generally outside Dernbach. The sisters did not only make themselves useful in the households of the needy. In 1852 they set up a 'knitting and sewing school' in Dernbach for local youth. So the parents knew their children were being supervised and kept busy with learning basic domestic activities.

At that time Dernbach did not have its own parish church, only two chapels. The young community was therefore looked after by clergy from Wirges and Montabaur . The steady growth of the community prompted Bishop Blum in 1853 to assign the sisters their own pastor, the previous pastor of Berod , Johann Jakob Wittayer. He had called the sisters to his parish for care and got to know them. When he took office in Dernbach, he was awarded the title Superior . He held this title until his appointment to the ecclesiastical council and episcopal commissioner (February 16, 1870). Shortly afterwards the community was approved by the Vatican (June 1, 1870). With this Mother Mary became the General Superior and Head of the Congregation. Wittayer's rights were limited to the spiritual sector (the so-called forum internum ). The congregation's first everlasting profession took place on July 14, 1871. On this day, the founder and 78 other sisters also made their perpetual vows.

In 1854 the community opened their first school in Dernbach. In the same year, on the initiative of the local politician Moritz Lieber, the first branch was founded in Camberg / Taunus . Even with the following foundations, the founding always followed the invitation of local sponsors or political organs of a municipality. Kasper only deviated from this principle in the Kulturkampf , when it was founded in Lutterade (today Geleen) in the Netherlands (October 5, 1875). This larger estate was intended as a place of refuge in case the congregation had been forced to leave Prussia.

In 1855 the cooperative received formal statutes from Limburg Bishop Blum. At the same time, the first branch was established outside the Diocese of Limburg: in Paffendorf in the Archdiocese of Cologne . Foundations followed in 1856 in Montabaur, Rüdesheim, Hadamar, Wiesbaden, Harff and Königswinter, 1857 in Langenschwalbach, at the episcopal boys' seminar in Hadamar, Eltville, Hochheim, Lorch, Angermund, Kettwig, Antfeld, Vinsbeck and Westheim, 1858 in Niederlahnstein, Niederselters, Rauenthal, Oberlahnstein, Hofheim, Geisenheim, Wahn, Gilsdorf, Fürstenberg and Steinheim, 1859 in Königstein, Winkel, Flörsheim, Bensberg, Gymnisch, Gimborn, Düsseldorf and Sayn. Also in 1859 the first branch outside of what would later become the German Empire followed in Amsterraedt, the Netherlands.

In 1858 a teacher training college was founded in Dernbach, and in 1863 a secondary school for girls in the Montabaur branch. 1860, d. H. nine years after it was founded, the cooperative had 232 members. In 1865 the number had grown to 430 and the community spread rapidly across the region. The sisters cared for the sick at home and in hospitals, looked after orphans, the handicapped and young people, and taught in schools. In the German war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, sisters of the community worked in military hospitals on both sides.

Prussia 1866–1871

The annexation of Nassau by Prussia in 1866 initially facilitated negotiations and agreements between the community and the state, in particular for the establishment of further branches, through the uniform administration of a larger territory.

On the advice of Bishop Blum, eight sisters left Prussia in 1868 and traveled to the United States to establish a branch in the state of Indiana in the diocese of Fort Wayne in Hesse-Cassel . It was the first branch outside of Europe. Today she educates u. a. because of the distance, its own province - but connected to the parent company.

Until June 1, 1870, the cooperative was under episcopal law, when it was approved by the Holy See and made a congregation under papal law. This paved the way for increased supra-regional expansion. By then, more than 500 sisters had joined the community. The cooperative had spread beyond Germany to the USA, England, Holland and Bohemia.

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, sisters were again used to care for wounded soldiers.

German Empire 1871–1918

The culture war that began at the end of the war also affected the sisters. In 1873 they lost their permission to teach. However, it was not until 1877 that the last schools of the community in Prussia were closed. Among other things, this was due to the fact that in many places there were no rooms other than church rooms and communal school buildings first had to be built. The situation was similar with the limited number of teaching staff. The sisters who were no longer active in the school service often moved to hospitals where the order was active. From 1875 onwards, new members were no longer allowed to dress and professions were no longer permitted.

In 1877 the sisters started their work in the hospital in Rodingen (Luxembourg). In 1880, Katharina Kasper indicated the number of members as 511 professed sisters, 106 novices and 71 postulants and that of the branches next to Dernbach as 98. In addition to the Provincial House, there were eight branches in the USA with a total of 86 sisters

In 1882, as part of the declining Kulturkampf, 80 novices were allowed to be accepted again for the first time and a branch was established in Oberhausen. In 1883 some elementary schools of the order were allowed to reopen. In 1882 there were 582 sisters and 20 postulants in Europe and 115 sisters and nine postulants in the USA. In 1889 there were 1005 sisters worldwide, including 106 novices. On May 21, 1890, the Congregation received the final approval of its constitutions by Pope Leo XIII.

Maria Katharina Kasper led the community as General Superior until her death on February 2nd, 1898. By 1900 the number of sisters rose to almost 2,000.

Formations in Austria

Eight branches were founded in the Austrian Empire, often at the instigation of the local dynasts, such as B. in Bürgstein by the Count Waldstein . The result was in Prague branch monastery of St.. Joseph . She initially devoted herself to caring for orphans. At the same time, the nurses stationed there provided outpatient nursing care, which was also maintained throughout. This branch existed from June 1st, 1881 to August 9th, 1945. Due to the increasing number of orphans, the orphanage was moved to an orphanage, the so-called St. Guardian Angel , relocated. At the same time, the house also served as a dormitory for women. It existed from September 13, 1895 to May 11, 1945. The Immakulata monastery was built in Türmitz . It existed from October 10, 1887 to August 1, 1945 and was devoted to outpatient nursing, at times also to orphan care. Other tasks there were childcare (kindergarten) and sewing and handicraft schools. A hospital was maintained here during the First World War. The next facility was built in Bürgstein (St. John of Nepomuk Monastery). It existed from October 16, 1890 to August 9, 1945. Here, too, outpatient nursing was provided, an orphanage was maintained and childcare for local children (kindergarten) was provided. A branch in Hirschberg , the St. Joseph Monastery , existed from July 10, 1893 to August 2, 1945. The tasks consisted of outpatient nursing with isolated orphans, inpatient care for the elderly and infirm as well as handicraft lessons and a kindergarten. A branch in Böhmisch-Kamnitz supplied the district hospital from October 31, 1895 to November 27, 1946. At the same time, regional outpatient nursing care was provided. The two most recently established branches were established in Weipert : From September 2, 1896, the regional poor house and old people's home were supplied there and outpatient nursing was provided. It existed until July 13, 1943. From March 10, 1909, the sisters also received the municipal hospital for care. This branch existed until November 18, 1946. After the end of the First World War and the emergence of the successor states of the Danube Monarchy , the sisters stayed on site and founded their own province in order to continue doing their work there. These services only ended with the expulsion or flight at the end of the Second World War , so that none of the branches survived.

German Empire 1918–1945

In the 1930s the number of sisters peaked with 4,346 sisters in 341 branches.

Post-war period, Federal Republic of Germany

During the Second World War , branches were lost, such as B. the houses in Bohemia and in the area of the newly founded GDR .

New branches

New foundations followed in India (1970), Mexico, Brazil and Kenya, and since 2006 also in Nigeria.

today

In Germany there are currently around 240 sisters living in the two large monasteries of Dernbach and Tiefenthal, as well as more than twenty smaller convents. Today the community is active in Germany , the Netherlands , the USA , Great Britain , India , Mexico , Brazil , Kenya and Nigeria .

Areas of responsibility

Honorary grave of the sisters in Ratingen-Lintorf , Alter Friedhof

The sisters initially set themselves the task of alleviating the local misery of the rural population. The typical type of settlement at the end of the 19th century is a small apartment or house, usually located in a small village and inhabited by at least three nuns. They focus on outpatient nursing, family care and poor relief as well as running a kindergarten. Another focus of the order is the upbringing and education of young girls, as this was not a matter of course in the 1860s.

The nurses' ambulance stations take a twofold route: some of them become today's social stations via intermediate stations. Hospitals emerge from other outpatient departments in many places. One example of this is Gangelt , where a hospital was built in 1873 and 1874, in which, in addition to the regular sick, “a poor mentally weak” was admitted and treated in 1875. A facility for the disabled and a specialist hospital for psychiatry and psychotherapy developed from this.

Orphans lived in the mother house from the beginning. They are first taught with the village youth in the village school until the class sizes require a division. After that, teachers are employed and a private orphanage school is established, which has had state approval since 1855. The leadership of the order decided to train its own teachers, and in 1857 opened a seminar for women teachers, which was connected to the higher girls' school in Montabaur. By 1868, 28 schools in the dioceses of Limburg, Cologne, Paderborn and Trier had been transferred to the sisters. In 1873, at the beginning of the Kulturkampf , around 120 school sisters had to give up their work temporarily. The sisters opened several convents in the Netherlands to get through this time. Since 1880 the educational activity developed again. A second massive slump came with National Socialism . The schools, kindergartens and homes were expropriated or closed, and hospitals were used as military hospitals.

At the end of 1993, the religious order of the "Poor Maidservants of Jesus Christ" founded the Maria Hilf Kranken- und Pflegeegesellschaft mbH in order to make the health care institutions previously owned by the order economically and organizationally independent. Since then, the Maria Hilf Kranken- und Pflegeegesellschaft mbH has taken on the task of providing care for the sick, the disabled and the elderly. However, the shareholders of this GmbH are still the ADJC. A well-known branch of the Dernbacher sisters is the Tiefenthal Abbey in Eltville .

The economic ventures of the "poor servants of Jesus Christ" are summarized in the Dernbacher group Katharina Kasper .

spirituality

The naming of the community indicates the spiritual program. The founder Maria Katharina Kasper saw above all Jesus Christ as the servant who “did not come to be served, but to serve” ( Mt 20:28 EU ). She took him as a role model for her own service and took up the phrase: “I have given you an example so that you too can act as I did to you.” ( Jn 13.15 EU ) Kasper's concern was to offer people holistic help. With her spiritual profile she reacted to the concrete needs of the people of her time. That is why she repeatedly admonished her sisters to “love God above all by fulfilling his divine will”. She understood her mission to be to pass on the love of God to all people.

Abuse and processing

In media reports since 2006, the religious order was confronted with the accusation that it had committed child abuse in the 1960s and 1970s in the context of home upbringing and that it has not been investigated since then.

In children's homes such as Eschweiler ( St. Josef Children's Home ), the homes in Brüggen ( Dilborn Castle ) and Aulhausen near Rüdesheim , where the Dernbacher sisters worked or were managed by them, research by Markus Homes , Peter Wensierski and According to statements by former residents such as Hermine Schneider, children systematically broken and made submissive through violence. The religious order denied these allegations in 2008, but admitted in 2010 "corporal punishments" that "could not be reconciled with the educational zeitgeist of that time". The order wrote on its website: "Should you have experienced inhumane treatment in the homes we run, we ask for your forgiveness and apology."

literature

Sr. M. Gottfriedis Amend, ADJC: Moved by God's Spirit I. On the spirituality of Maria Katharina Kaspers and the history of her community . Ed .: Provincial leadership of the ADJC, Dernbach. Verlag Arfeller, Montabaur 2005, ISBN 3-9810235-0-1 . here longer chapters on the international expansion of the community
Sr. M. Gottfriedis Amend, ADJC: Moved by God's Spirit II. On the spirituality of Maria Katharina Kaspers and the history of her community . Ed .: Provincial leadership of the ADJC, Dernbach. Verlag Arfeller, Montabaur 2005, ISBN 3-9810235-0-1 .
Ulrich Eisenbach: Prisons, poor institutions and orphanages in Nassau. Welfare and labor education from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century . Wiesbaden 1994, ISBN 3-922244-95-5 .
Konrad Fuchs : Katharina Kasper (1820-1898), founder of the monastery association of poor servants of Jesus Christ. In: Nassauische Annalen 88. 1977, pp. 149–166.
Martin Grünewald: Giving without counting. Katharina Kasper - her life and her work . Echo-Buchverlag, Neuried 1988, ISBN 3-927095-02-8 .
Diözesanmuseum Limburg (Ed.): In the holy occupations. 150 years of poor servants of Jesus Christ in Dernbach . Catalog of the exhibition Diocesan Museum Limburg. 2001, ISBN 3-921221-10-2 .
Duchy of Nassau 1806–1866. Politics-Economy-Culture . Catalog of the exhibition in the Museum Wiesbaden 1981. Wiesbaden 1981 (without ISBN).
Otto Renkhoff: Nassau biography. Short biographies from 13 centuries . 2nd Edition. Wiesbaden 1992.
Klaus Schatz SJ: History of the Diocese of Limburg (= sources and treatises on the Middle Rhine church history . Volume 48 ). Self-published by the Society for Middle Rhine Church History e. V. Mainz, Mainz 1983 (without ISBN).
Nicole Winkelhöfer: Katharina Kasper - In the footsteps of a saint. Biographical novel . Bernardus-Verlag, Aachen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8107-0291-3 .

Web links

Commons : Poor Maidservants of Jesus Christ - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Sr. M. Gottfriedis Amend: Moved by God's Spirit I and II. Montabaur 2005

^ Order abbreviations ADJC on the website of the German Conference of Superiors of the Order

↑ Poor servants of Jesus Christ. Retrieved October 11, 2018 .

↑ Josef Bordat: “ To love God above all” . In: The daily mail . Volume 71, No. 41 , October 11, 2018, p. 10 .

↑ Peter Wensierski : Strikes in the name of the Lord. The repressed history of children in care in the Federal Republic . Spiegel -buchverlag in the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-421-05892-X , www.schlaege.com ( Memento from August 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

↑ In the clutches of care. ZDF documentary, June 4, 2008

↑ Hermione's list: The children of the merciless sisters in the IMdB

↑ Markus Homes: Home education: help in life or custody? Violence and lust in the name of God. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 3-8334-4780-X

↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger : Children's homes: "With the straitjacket in the tub" , August 26, 2008

↑ Aachener Zeitung : Abuses in the children's home: the order asks for forgiveness , April 9, 2010

[Amend-1] Sr. M. Gottfriedis Amend: Moved by God's Spirit I and II. Montabaur 2005