Pallottine Sisters

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Founder Vinzenz Pallotti (1795–1850). Painting by Bruno Zwiener

There are two congregations of Pallottine Sisters in the Roman Catholic Church . Their official names are: Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate (Suore dell 'Apostolato Cattolico, abbreviation CSAC) and Missionary Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate (abbreviation SAC, formerly CMP). As women religious they commit themselves to live according to the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, obedience) through vows .

history

The community of sisters came into being in 1838 within the Association of the Catholic Apostolate (Unio or UAC), which had been brought into being three years earlier by Vincent Pallotti in Rome. After a cholera epidemic, Pallotti opened an orphanage for girls at Pentecost 1838. He combined this with the intention that a spiritual community of women would emerge from the group of educators, who should also take on other tasks. In the years to come, more houses of the community were built in Italy and then also in the USA.

In 1891 an international mission college was founded in Rome to train sisters for various missions. Mainly women from Germany who wanted to take on missionary work in Cameroon with the Pallottines came into this college . A foundation in Germany was initially not possible due to the Kulturkampf laws.

The Marienborn monastery in Limburg an der Lahn, built between 1900 and 1901, was the seat of the general leadership of the community for a long time. Today it is the provincial house of the German province.

After the first sisters were already active in the then German colony of Cameroon , a group of sisters was sent to Germany in 1895 and founded the first house in Germany in Limburg an der Lahn. From this a separate branch developed over the next few years, which is now called Missionary Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate . In 1899 the community elected M. Felizitas Massenkeil as its first general superior.

In 1964 this community was recognized as a congregation under papal law. In 1968 she moved her generalate from Limburg to Rome. At the same time the community was divided into provinces . The Missionaries of the Catholic Apostolate now have offices in sixteen countries in Europe, Africa, North, Central, South America and Asia. They have around 550 members.

The Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate , who also have their generalate in Rome, are now represented in Italy, South and North America, India and Mozambique.

Pallottine Sisters in Germany

The German Province of the Missionary Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate includes about 70 sisters in Germany, Brazil and Rome. In Germany there are houses in the Refrath district of Bergisch Gladbach, in Limburg and in Munich, in Rome a guest house and in Brazil a branch in Maranhão , a state in the north-east.

In 2003, the sisters established the St. Vinzenz Pallotti Foundation, which was responsible for handing over the institutions that had been founded and directed by the sisters in Germany over the course of a hundred years: the retreat and education house in Limburg (it was opened on the 1st Closed in July 2015), the Vinzenz-Pallotti-Hospital in Bensberg (it was handed over to the Society of Franciscan Sisters in Olpe in 2017), the St. Josef daycare center in Refrath, the St. Josefshaus nursing home in Refrath and the Haus Felizitas nursing home in Limburg. The sisters are free to continue to get involved in these institutions or to take on tasks with other providers. They are involved in nursing and care for the elderly, hospice, hospital pastoral care, spiritual support, retreats, supervision, social work, schools, missions and accompanying young people as temporary missionaries , housekeeping, gardening, secretariat, bookkeeping and administration.

In addition to the communities in Brazil, the sisters in Germany also support the work of the other provinces in Belize, Cameroon, South Africa, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and India.

literature

  • Maria Battistina Nori: La Congregazione delle Suore dell'Apostolato Cattolico - Cenno Storico . Marietti, Casale 1980.
  • Heinrich Vieter : The youth are our future. Chronicle of the Catholic Mission in Cameroon 1890–1913 . Edited by Norbert Hannappel. Pallotti-Verlag Friedberg 2011.
  • Eva Hunold, Gerburg E. Vogt: The Pallottine Sisters in Limburg . In: Christoph Waldecker (Red.): Limburg in the flow of time. Highlights from 1100 years of city history (series of contributions to the history of the district town of Limburg adLahn ). Magistrate of the district town of Limburg an der Lahn, Limburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-936162-08-0 , pp. 561-588.
  • Provincialate of the Pallottine Sisters: "Everyone thinks ..." . Festschrift for the anniversary year. Limburg 1995.
  • Generalate of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate (ed.): Outline of the becoming and development of the sisterly community of the Catholic Apostolate. Your location in Pallotti's complete works . Rome 1970/71 (with contributions from Sr. Eva Hunold, P. Ansgar Faller, Sr. Dominica Rose).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Rome guest house
  2. ↑ Website of the Vinzenz Pallotti Hospital Bensberg