Who are the Sisters of Charity?
They are a contemporary Congregation of women who have taken the Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, as well as a Fourth Vow of Service of the Poor. They were the first religious permitted by Rome to take Perpetual Vows and yet work outside the cloister. When were they founded and in what country? They were founded in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in Dublin, Ireland. For centuries Ireland had been deprived of fundamental rights by the Penal Code imposed by England, and after it lost its Parliament from union with England in 1800 many industries were prohibited and intense economic depression ensued. Why were they founded? A compassionate young woman from Cork was appalled at the poverty she witnessed when she visited the slum areas near Dublin. Daughter of a medical man, Mary Aikenhead was not just an observer of destitution, but had an empirical method in systematically solving the problems of ill-health, ignorance and injustice of any kind. How did the establishing of this order come about? The yearnings of Miss Aikenhead and the similar desire to help the poor on the part of Dr Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, coincided. Careful perusal of rules of other religious resulted in a choice by the foundress of those of St Ignatius, which were submitted to Rome as Constitutions for the Sisters of Charity. Acceptance came in 1816, with total confirmation in 1833, making this new Congregation one of the fastest in the world to gain approval. This latter was because of her Sisters’ heroic work in nursing the cholera victims in the 1832 epidemic. Was she an effective advocate on behalf of the poor? Very much so. She is recorded in the House of Commons Proceedings in 1833 as having given thorough answers to a widespread Commission of Enquiry into the State of the Irish Poor. An economic analysis of the industrial causes of poverty was made by her. She was the only woman to have undertaken that role. One of her Sisters in Cork also gave evidence to a committee of enquiry. Why did the Sisters of Charity come to Australia? Because the Penal Colony of fifty years still had severe disadvantages in its care for female convicts; there was no widespread education; and there was inadequate provision for health by way of hospital care. The first Catholic Bishop Dr Polding pleaded with the foundress to send out some of her community, but as they were not a missionary order, she had to await any application by volunteers. In accepting the unprecedented venture of being the only nuns in any penal colony, they were at the same time the first consecrated religious women in the whole of the Pacific area. In what was a Penal Colony how did the Sisters cope with the barrage of permissions to be undergone in gaining admission to each penitentiary? They had already obtained the first of permissions from the Home Secretary, who in the year 1838 was Lord Glenelg. In New South Wales they had to seek an interview with Governor Gipps. In their own Rules there was a very prudent one which forbade criticism of any institute visited by them, except when observations needed to be made to such only as had the authority to redress the evil in question. Because they were circumspect they were always welcome in public institutes. What are the greatest achievements of the Sisters of Charity? They would not classify them as achievements, but alleviations of misery. One area would be the founding in Dublin of St Vincent’s Hospital in 1834, the only such institute to be managed by women, and where the first nurses in the British Isles were trained. It quickly became a Clinical School, or training hospital for medical students. Likewise in Australia, the first St Vincent’s Hospital was opened in 1857, and it was the only institute in the colony to be run by women and funded by the colonists during its first half century. It also trained the earliest nurses in this country. Perhaps The Sydney Morning Herald was prescient when it commented in 1868 at the laying of the Darlinghurst foundation stone of St Vincent’s: “The foundation stone blessed that day was in fact a corner-stone of the structure.” With its almost biblical overtones “the stone which the builders rejected has become the corner-stone,” it may in fact have been in some sense the corner-stone of the colony’s health system, for so many of its standards have been imitated, and today the Sisters of Charity Health Service is the largest non-government health body in Australia. The second area of their involvement is in general education. Not only did they teach in eight schools in Sydney for their first twenty years in the colony of New South Wales, but they taught young workers in night classes (anticipating TAFE ) and ran free libraries for young people. They ran Sunday Schools to which soldiers sometimes came for religious instruction in the sacramental life. They opened St Vincent’s School in 1858, but also conducted forty schools in cities and suburbs throughout the four eastern states. The school in Potts Point set the norm for most secondary schools that followed in time, as it pioneered females sitting for examinations in the Civil Service; in Speech and Drama in the Trinity College; and introduced the first ever public examinations in Australia of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. The links of this school with the countryside go back to 1882 when the first boarders were admitted. Were the Sisters of Charity limited in their sphere of work? At no time. Since landing in Sydney in 1838, they visited the Gaols right from the days when capital punishment was the norm. (Today they are still faithful to prison work) In the colony, visiting the poor, run-down wattle-and-daub hovels of the poor, or the slab huts of workers, bringing nourishing food and health advice, became regular services they performed, making them well known throughout the streets and lanes of the town. From school to school they might walk from as far as St Benedict’s Broadway to St Brigid’s in the Rocks. They were lauded by the judiciary and sought after by the felons. They interacted with the Comptroller of Convicts and the Overseer of the Chain-gangs in the Stockades. They helped the French transportees from Canada when these were prohibited from sitting in St Patrick’s Church, Parramatta, after walking there from Concord, by getting them wooden forms from the school. They provided shelter for young women driven to prostitution, by providing accommodation for them and giving them training in skills. They taught the children deprived of a parent on the voyage out in the Home for Destitute Children at Waverley. What ensured the versatility of these Sisters in meeting human needs? Their foundress trained them like today’s commandos. Confronted with a problem area, they had to go in early, observe the conditions, then suggest some form of alleviation. They did this not by criticising the authorities, but by skilfully proposing an alternative. At no time were they thwarted in their endeavours. Not to be overlooked was their Fourth Vow of Service of the Poor, which, like the sword of the young knight in days of chivalry, was always used to the preferment of the needs of the deprived. At no time would they accept remuneration for their services. There was at times in the nineteenth century a fear of proselytism, but that had been proscribed in the stated aims of their Order from the time of the Dublin St Vincent’s. A Prospectus was published before any institute was founded, so that the public might be enabled to assuage their fears. Open government was always their policy, so Inspectors from the Education Board were always invited early after the school opened. In their hospital the Summary of Diseases was made public and revealed the lowest mortality rate in Australia. Apart from the narrow Crown Land at Darlinghurst, since they had to buy their own land and finance the buildings thereon, meticulous book-keeping was the norm, while administrative and maintenance expenses were always made public. Building expenditure was published in the daily press. Any donation could be traced to the last shilling. What was their inspiration in all of this unremitting work? It was the example of Christ, one of whose aims in life was to relieve the pain and uncertainty of others. Their motto implied this: Caritas Christi Urget Nos – the charity of Christ urged them on. This badge of the Congregation is one of the oldest logos in Australia. The fact that over decades their income was uncertain made their dependence on Divine Providence a constant, as Mary Aikenhead had stressed. In both hospital and school, the words printed on their Annual Report, Under the care of the Sisters of Charity, were always reassuring. In voyaging to Australia they were in actual fact going to act as comforters of the afflicted, guides to the needed skills, educators of the young, assuagers of every illness, in fact, mentors carrying out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. For sixteen years they, like most immigrants, would be without a residence in Sydney, paying rent and changing locations as leases expired. In a reverse set of circumstances, the colonists of all persuasions determined to look after them, to pay their rent, to drop the home-grown vegetables at their door. The Press of Sydney consistently defended them. What characteristics were manifested by the Sisters of Charity that we now claim as Australian? They were courageous, plucky in the face of criminal threat; candid with transparency in their works; articulate in advocacy matters for the underprivileged; committed to fair play for all; manifesting a ready sense of humour; unshockable; displaying loyalty to others; and with an unassailable work ethic. Although most were well-educated and refined, at no time did they stand on ceremony. Why else do you think they wore a work apron over their habit? Even the foundress went from scrubbing the floor to welcoming an Archbishop, he being none the wiser as to the identity of the nun. In Australia, they were tailor-made for the guiding of the newly freed penal inmates to the liberty of self-fulfilling capable colonists.
How Australian were they really? They were legally an Australian Congregation from the year 1842, four years after landing in the country. Rome had arranged that, which had been anticipated by Mary Aikenhead because of the vast distance. At no time did they recruit postulants from overseas; the members who joined them were all colonial young women. There was no call for them, therefore, to send any finance to Ireland. Was it easy carrying out their commitments in Australia? No. They lost ten young Sisters to death in the first twenty years. The hazards they endured were not unlike the drawbacks of unremitting warfare. There was never enough money to sustain themselves and support the many calls on their resources. As already noted, the fact that they did survive was attributable to the generosity of the struggling colonists. Many merchants living over their shops in the Georgian two-storey buildings were aware of the struggle sustained by these nuns. For decades these firms were household names in Sydney. Women proved themselves versatile in raising money for the institutes. Country people were generous despite the vast distances. Like a complex Persian rug these pioneer women were woven into the very warp and woof of the nation. Over the years they had trained so many colonists in skills, educated vast numbers of their children, interceded on behalf of numerous disadvantaged, that today we almost take for granted that our youth will be attracted to works of relief, that charitable bodies will pick up where there is lack of revenue, that governments will help the needy by welfare intervention, that volunteers will flock to support an endeavour. Yes, Australians are a compassionate, caring nation. But these qualities do not emerge by accident. Might it not be said that the ripple in the pond made by that first pebble dropped when these women disembarked 168 years ago may have helped the penal colony build up the very character we prize today as being authentically Australian? Catherine O’Carrigan RSC MA (Syd); Dip Art Ed (ESTC) 6 March 2006 |
