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Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community

Online ISBN:
9780823261048
Print ISBN:
9780823254736
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Book

Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community

Mary Beth Fraser Connolly
Mary Beth Fraser Connolly

Assistant Director

Lilly Fellows Program, Valparaiso University
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Published online:
18 September 2014
Published in print:
1 February 2014
Online ISBN:
9780823261048
Print ISBN:
9780823254736
Publisher:
Fordham University Press

Abstract

Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community examines the history of the Sisters of Mercy of the Chicago Regional Community, the first congregation of Catholic sisters in Chicago from its establishment in 1846, its expansion into Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and development through the twentieth century to 2008. Women of Faith is a history of the sisters themselves, their spirituality, their ministries, and of their relationships to one another. It examines the living charism or founding spirituality, of Catherine McAuley and how the Sisters of Mercy from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries reinterpreted it for themselves. Women of Faith considers the historical context of the Mercys’ spirituality and examines the everyday lives of the congregation, with a special focus on the process of formation and identity building, the connection between belief and action, and how women religious confronted the realities of their secular and religious worlds. While Women of Faith encompasses all of the Chicago Regional Community’s history beginning in 1846, the bulk of the work focuses on the developments within the Mercy congregation, the Catholic Church, and American society in the twentieth century, particularly influential movements like the Sister Formation Conference, the renewal of Vatican II, and the civil rights and feminist movements.

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