Paul Sisters of Christian Love from Birmingham
The Paul Sisters of Christian Love of Birmingham (English: Sisters of Charity of St Paul the Apostle , abbreviation: SP) have been a Roman Catholic women's congregation based in Birmingham since 1847 . They are not to be confused with the Pauline Sisters of Chartres from whom they emerged.
history
The Catholic pastor of Banbury , William Tandy, who had opened a school for poor children there in 1835, turned to the Pauline Sisters of Chartres in search of reinforcement with the approval of his Bishop, Nicholas Wiseman , in the 1940s . In 1847 Geneviève (Désirée) Dupuis (born on January 28, 1813 in Paris, the 15th of 16 children, joined in 1834, religious name Zoïle ) and a fellow sister were sent out.
William Bernard Ullathorne OSB (1806-1889), ordained bishop in 1850, supported them, but left no doubt that he wanted the separation of Chartres and the establishment of a separate English congregation, as well as the settlement of the mother house in his episcopal city of Birmingham. In 1864, when there were already 26 branch communities with 126 members, Geneviève Dupuis (the religious name was hardly used in England) received the necessary decree of praise for her independent congregation from the Pope, with whom she discussed personally in Rome. In the same year she moved the mother house to Selly Park in the southwest of Birmingham ( St Paul's Convent, 94 Selly Park Road ), where it is still located today. The final recognition of the religious constitutions by Rome did not take place until 1931.
In the 56 years up to her death on September 25, 1903 in Selly Park, Geneviève Dupuis founded 88 convents (as life superior), of which 37 had to be closed and in 1997 a total of 14 survived. At the center of the care and school education of the 400 sisters who died when they died, there were poor children and orphans. All the sisters had passed through the novitiate in Selly Park and had been shaped by the superior. In 1938, at the height of development, the congregation had 708 members, in 1997 there were 324. The congregation reached Ireland in 1903 , Scotland and Canada in 1907 , South Africa in 1954 and Romania in 1990 (from 1995 with its own novitiate). The festschrift for the 150th anniversary listed around 200 houses.
Superiors
- 1847–1903: Geneviève Dupuis
- 1903-1903: Gabriel Johnson
- 1904-1906: Benedicta Brodhurst
- 1906–1924: Mechtilde Thelen
- 1924-1947: Mary John of HH Barry
- 1947–1953: Borgia Fitzgerald
- 1953–1968: Cecilia Marie Auterson
- 1968–1980: Malachy Joseph Lynch
- 1980-1986: Sheila Mulcahy
- 1986 - ????: Maria Rosa O'Sullivan
literature
- René Gobillot: Les Sœurs de Saint-Paul de Chartres . Grasset, Paris 1938, pp. 243-246.
- George Vincent Hudson: Mother Geneviève Dupuis. Foundress of the English Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Paul the Apostle, 1813-1903 . Sheed & Ward, London 1929.
- JJ (also John Joseph or Jack) Scarisbrick (* 1928): Selly Park and beyond. The story of Geneviève Dupuis and the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Paul the Apostle. Sisters of Charity of St. Paul the Apostle, Birmingham 1997.