Catherine Elizabeth McAuley, RSM (29 September 1778 – 11 November 1841) was an Irish Catholic religious sister who founded the Sisters of Mercy in 1831. The women's congregation has always been associated with teaching, especially in Ireland, where the sisters taught Catholics (and at times Protestants) at a time when education was mainly reserved for members of the established Church of Ireland.

Early life and education

Catherine Elizabeth McAuley was born in 1778 at Stormestown House in Dublin, Ireland, to James and Elinor (née Conway) McAuley. Her father died in 1783 when she was five and her mother died in 1798, when she was 20. McAuley went first to live with a maternal uncle, Owen Conway, and later joined her brother James and sister Mary at the home of William Armstrong, a Protestant relative on her mother's side.

In 1803, McAuley became the household manager and companion of William and Catherine Callaghan, an elderly, childless, and wealthy Protestant couple and friends of the Armstrongs, at their estate in Coolock, a village northeast of Dublin. For 20 years she gave catechetical instruction to the household servants and the poor village children. A location was selected at the junction of Lower Baggot Street

For three years, Catherine McAuley and her companions continued their work. McAuley never intended to found a community of religious women; her initial intention was to assemble a corps of Catholic social workers. In 1828, the archbishop permitted the staff of the institute to assume a distinctive habit and to publicly visit the sick. The habit adopted was a black tunic and cape of the same material reaching to the belt, a white collar, and a lace cap and veil. In the same year, the archbishop desired a name for the community, and McAuley chose "Sisters of Mercy".

McAuley desired that the members should combine the silence and prayer of the Carmelites with the active labours of a Sister of Charity.

While setting up the House of Mercy, McAuley was also raising nine children from her own family; four from her cousin Anne Conway Byrn and five from her sister Mary, both of whom died young. In September 1830, McAuley and two other women, Anna Maria Doyle and Elizabeth Harley, entered the novitiate of the Presentation Sisters to formally prepare for life as religious. On 12 December 1831 they professed vows and returned to the House of Mercy. The Sisters of Mercy consider 12 December 1831 as the day of their founding. He then appointed McAuley as Mother Superior. The rule of the Sisters of Mercy was formally confirmed by Pope Gregory XVI on 6 June 1841.

The 1826–1837 cholera pandemic hit Dublin in 1832, and McAuley agreed to staff a cholera hospital on Townsend Street. Between 1831 and 1841 she founded additional communities in Tullamore, Charleville, Cork, Carlow, Galway, Limerick, Birr, Bermondsey and Birmingham and branch houses in Kingstown and Booterstown. Shortly thereafter, small groups of sisters left Ireland to establish new foundations on the east and west coasts of the United States, in Britain, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. There were also 5,000 associates, and close to half a million partners in ministry. The Mercy International Centre in Dublin, Ireland, is the international "home" of Mercy worldwide.

Beatification process

In 1978, Pope Paul VI opened the beatification process of Catherine McAuley. In 1990, upon recognition of her heroic virtue, Pope John Paul II declared her venerable. The postulator for the cause is Brenda Dolphin RSM.

See also

  • List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland
  • Series C banknotes
  • Mary Frances Xavier Warde

References

Further reading

  • Mary C. Sullivan. The Path of Mercy: The Life of Catherine McAuley (Catholic University of America Press; 2012) 500 pages; scholarly biography
  • Mercy International Centre