Storia dominicana

Missioni contemporanee all'estero

• Bangladesh: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Bolivia: Suore Domenicane di Amityville, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico, Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Cambogia: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Canada: Suore Domenicane di Adrian
• Cile: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Cina: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• La Colombia: Suore Domenicane di Amityville
• Repubblica Dominicana: Suore Domenicane di Adrian, Suore Domenicane di Amityville
• Timor Est: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Ecuador: Suore Domenicane di Amityville, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• El Salvador: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Guinea Equatoriale: Frati Domenicani della Provincia del Santissimo Nome di Gesù
• Francia: Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Guatemala: Suore Domenicane di Houston, Suore di Maryknoll di San Domenico, Frati Domenicani della Provincia del Santissimo Nome di Gesù
• Haiti: Suore Domenicane della Pace, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Honduras: Sorelle Domenicane di Grand Rapids, Sorelle Domenicane della Pace
• Hong Kong: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Italia: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico, Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Giappone: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Kenya: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico, Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Corea: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Lima: Suore Domenicane di Springfield
• Messico: Suore Domenicane della Missione San Jose, Frati Domenicani della Provincia del Santissimo Nome di Gesù
• Myanmar: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Nigeria: Suore Domenicane della Pace, Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Norvegia: Suore Domenicane di Adrian
• Il Pakistan: Suore Domenicane di Sparkill
• Panama: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Perù: Sorelle Domenicane di Amityville, Sorelle Domenicane di Grand Rapids, Sorelle Domenicane della Pace, Sorelle Domenicane di Springfield, Sorelle Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Filippine: Suore Domenicane di Adrian, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Porto Rico: Suore Domenicane di Adrian, Frati Domenicani della Provincia del Santissimo Nome di Gesù
• Svizzera: Frati Domenicani (Provincia di Sant'Alberto Magno)
• Taiwan: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Tanzania: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Zimbabwe: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico

Collaborazione all'interno dell'Ordine (2010-oggi)

Man mano che la Dominican Leadership Conference (DLC) continuava a svilupparsi e a crescere, erano evidenti le mutate esigenze dei due gruppi (frati e suore) e i diversi tipi di problemi che dovevano affrontare. Inoltre, i frati, le suore e i laici avevano le loro conferenze specifiche, che le suore non avevano. Quindi, dopo un processo di studio e consultazione durato due anni, una votazione dei membri del DLC nel 2009 e una votazione della Federazione nel 2010, il DLC ha tenuto la sua ultima riunione a Maryknoll, NY, nell'ottobre 2010, ed è nata una nuova organizzazione: Il DLC domenicano Sorelle Conferenza (DSC). Per saperne di più sulla Conferenza delle Sorelle Domenicane, la invitiamo a Clicchi qui.

Collaborazione all'interno dell'Ordine (1935-2010)

Dal momento in cui i frati hanno invitato le donne a partecipare alla loro missione domenicana nel Kentucky, la collaborazione tra i rami dell'ordine è rimasta un fattore importante, a volte trascurato nella storia domenicana americana.

Significativa è stata la Conferenza della leadership dominicana (DLC), iniziata nel 1935 come conferenza delle madri domenicane generali degli Stati Uniti. Riunì annualmente i leader delle suore e dei frati delle congregazioni e delle province americane. La Conferenza ha incoraggiato varie forme di collaborazione attraverso i seguenti gruppi:

• Progetto OPUS Una storia dell'Ordine dei Predicatori negli Stati Uniti. Ricercatori dei quattro rami dell'Ordine sono impegnati insieme in questa impresa: la prima storia integrata dei Domenicani americani.
• Promotori della predicazione
• Collaborazione tra Stati Uniti e Dominicana. Un comitato per promuovere le conferenze regionali e l'azione nella Famiglia Dominicana.
• Noviziato domenicano collaborativo
• Las Casas - I Domenicani nel Ministero con i Nativi Americani, Inc.

Le iniziative per i programmi collaborativi di formazione iniziale sono iniziate nel 1976 con le conferenze inter-iniziatiche a livello nazionale.

Questi hanno portato al lancio di un noviziato comune per le donne domenicane e di un noviziato e di uno Studium combinati per i frati delle Province di Sant'Alberto e di San Martino de Porres.

I monasteri di donne contemplative domenicane hanno dato vita nel 1983 alla Conferenza delle Monache dell'Ordine dei Predicatori degli Stati Uniti, che organizza settimane di studio monastico e pubblica la Ricerca Monastica Domenicana per promuovere la vita contemplativa.

Grazie alla loro tradizionale associazione con le università in Europa e nelle Americhe, i Domenicani hanno servito come amministratori e professori nell'istruzione superiore in tutti gli Stati Uniti. Hanno fondato più di diciotto college e università, tra cui l'unica scuola di specializzazione per uomini e donne, l'Aquinas Institute of Theology. Il recente movimento di collaborazione negli Stati Uniti ha dato vita a un Consorzio.

Superando i confini nazionali, i frati e le suore promotori domenicani di giustizia e pace per il Nord America si uniscono ai promotori di tutto l'Ordine per educare, sostenere e coordinare la campagna per la pace nel mondo attraverso la giustizia.

La collaborazione a livello mondiale tra i rami dell'Ordine è stata stimolata a metà del XX secolo, quando i Capitoli Generali hanno dato nuova enfasi a una vecchia realtà: la Famiglia domenicana. La revisione delle Costituzioni dei frati nel 1968 ha dato una rinnovata enfasi alla famiglia domenicana, dichiarando che tutti i frati, le suore, le monache e i laici "condividono la stessa vocazione comune e ciascuno, in modo particolare, serve la missione dell'Ordine nel mondo". I capitoli successivi hanno continuato a porre l'accento su questa enfasi, portando al primo Simposio internazionale della Famiglia Domenicana a Bologna nel 1983, guidato da Vincent de Couesnongle O.P., Maestro dell'Ordine. In questo evento storico, al quale i domenicani americani parteciparono pienamente, i delegati produssero il Documento definitivo di Bologna sulla Famiglia Domenicana, come base per continuare la collaborazione mondiale nell'Ordine dei Predicatori.

Missioni all'estero (1908-2000)

Solo nel 1908 la Chiesa negli Stati Uniti uscì dal suo precedente status di missione. Poco dopo i Domenicani americani iniziarono a inviare membri in missione in altri Paesi. Le prime furono le suore della Missione San Jose, che nel 1910 aprirono una scuola e poi un noviziato in Messico.

Nel 1912 il Sorelle Maryknoll di San Domenico sono state fondate da Mary Joseph Rogers a Hawthorne, New York, per essere la prima congregazione americana di suore domenicane fondata specificamente per servire nelle missioni estere. Hanno ricevuto l'approvazione ufficiale della Chiesa nel 1920.

I primi frati americani ad occuparsi di una missione all'estero furono quelli della Provincia di San Giuseppe, che nel 1924 inviarono degli uomini a Kienning-Fu, nel sud della Cina, e successivamente invitarono le Sorelle di Santa Maria delle Sorgenti, in Ohio, ad unirsi a loro.

Le suore domenicane di Los Angeles hanno aperto nel 1959 il primo monastero di americani a Karachi, in Pakistan, seguendo l'iniziativa missionaria dei frati della Provincia di San Giuseppe.

Mentre tutti i rami dell'Ordine sentivano la chiamata dei popoli al di fuori degli Stati Uniti, una chiamata speciale alle terre dell'America Latina fu lanciata da Papa Pio XII negli anni '50 del XIX secolo. Molte suore e frati risposero; e molti luoghi continuano ad essere presidiati da congregazioni e province domenicane.

Alla fine del XX secolo, gli uomini e le donne domenicani offrono una varietà di ministeri nei seguenti campi di missione:

• Bahamas: Suore Domenicane di Caldwell
• Belize: Suore Domenicane del Kentucky
• Bolivia: Frati Domenicani della Provincia di Sant'Alberto, Suore Domenicane di Colombo, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico, Sinsinawa, Presentazione Suore di San Domenico (Dighton)
• Brasile: Sorelle Domenicane di San Rafael, Sorelle Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Cile: Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Cina: Suore Domenicane di Colombo, Suore Maryknoll di San Domenico
• Colombia: Suore Domenicane di Amityville
• Repubblica Dominicana: Suore Domenicane di Adrian
• El Salvador: Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa
• Guatemala: Dominican Sisters of Akron, Dominican Sisters of Houston, Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic
• Honduras: Dominican Friars of St. Albert, Dominican Friars of St. Martin de Porres
• Jamaica: Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt
• Kenya: Dominican Friars of St. Joseph, Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Dominican Sisters of Newark, Dominican Sisters of North Guilford, Dominican Sisters of Racine, Dominican Friars of St. Albert, Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic
• Messico: Dominican Friars of Holy Name, Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Dominican Sisters of Racine, Dominican Sisters of San Rafael
• Nigeria: Dominican Friars of St. Albert, Dominican Sisters of Great Bend
• Il Pakistan: Dominican Friars of St. Joseph, Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, Los Angeles Monastery
• Panama: Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, Dominican Sisters of Adrian
• Perù: Dominican Friars of St. Joseph, Dominican Friars of St. Martin de Porres, Dominican Sisters of Columbus, Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Dominican Sisters of Kentucky, Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic
• Filippine: Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic; Los Angeles Monastery, Summit, Corpus Christi
• Porto Rico: Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Dominican Sisters of Amityville, Dominican Sisters of Columbus, Newburgh
• Romania: Suore Domenicane del Kentucky
• South Africa: Suore Domenicane di Adrian
• Trinidad: Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa
• Virgin Islands: Dominican Sisters Adrian

Additionally, Maryknoll Sisters are the only Dominicans in these places: Chile, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Nepal, New Guinea, Nicaragua, Samoa, Sudan, Taiwan, and Tanzania.

I laici nel XX secolo

The Dominican Laity in the United States, through the leadership of their members, have developed their contemplative-apostolic role in the Order of Preachers within each province of the friars. Chapters are now established in 33 states, and their members collaborate with Canadian laity in the CANAM organization. In 1985 the North American groups welcomed lay Dominicans from all continents to Montreal in 1985 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Third Order in 1285. With a thrust toward the future they emphasized the elements of Dominican spirituality which many lay Catholics seek to live.

A broad vision of the laity was proposed at the first International Conference of the Dominican Family in Bologna in 1983. There, led by the Master of the Order, Vincent de Couesnongle, the members enlarged the concept of "lay Dominican" to include all men and women who "look to Dominic and the Order for inspiration." In the United States these include women and men invited to be associates of many congregations of Dominican Sisters.

Missioni negli Stati Uniti nel XX secolo

Dominicans have come on mission to the United States from other lands since the first Spanish friars arrived in the southeast and southwest. In the nineteenth century members of the Order from England, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain joined the Americana to proclaim the Gospel to natives and immigrants alike. At the close of the twentieth century Dominican women and men continue to come from other nations to minister to people of the United States. The following list shows the nation and Dominican group from which they come, and the location of their provincial or regional headquarters in the United States:

• Canada: Dominican Friars of Canadian Province; Lewiston, ME
• France: Dominican Rural Missionaries; Abbeville, LA
• Francia: Presentation Sisters of St. Dominic; Dighton, MA
• France: Roman Congregation; Iowa City, IA
• Ireland: Dominican Sisters of Cabra; New Orleans, LA
• Italia: Religious Missionaries of St. Dominic; Corpus Christi,TX
• Philippines: Dominican Sisters of Manila; Pen Argyl, PA
• Poland: Dominican Sisters of Poland; Justice, IL
• South Africa: Dominican Sisters of  Oakford
• Spain: Dominican Friars of Spain Province; San Diego, TX
• Viet Nam: Dominican Sisters of Ho Nai, Houston, TX
• Viet Nam: Dominican Friars of Viet Nam: Houston, TX

New Developments for New Needs (1939 to 1995)

On the eve of World War II the friars of St. Joseph Province had grown in membership and expanded geographically from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. The Master of the Order, Martin Gillet, proposed the formation of a new province of friars which, with headquarters in Chicago, was established in 1939, taking the title of St. Albert the Great.

Friars of the three American provinces served as chaplains for the armed forces in World War II. During and after the war they served increasing numbers of Catholics who moved to the cities and required new or expanded parishes.

American provinces of the friars took part in the post-war period in promoting the study of theology among the laity by means of Thomist Associations, regional study groups, and courses in theology in colleges for women and men throughout the country.

In the decade of the 1940's four monasteries of nuns were formed from existing foundations: Elmira, NY from Buffalo; Lufkin, Texas from Farmington Hills, MI; and North Guilford, Connecticut from Summit, New Jersey. The fourth foundation, from Catonsville, Maryland, brought an interracial, inter-cultural monastery to Marbury, Alabama.

The same decade of the 1940's was marked by the initial conferral of bachelor's degrees in five Dominican institutions of higher education; Aquinas Institute of Theology, sponsored by the Province of St. Albert the Great, in 1941; and in 1942 three institutions: Aquinas College, founded by the Grand Rapids Dominicans; Barry College, founded by the Adrian Sisters, and Edgewood College founded by the Sinsinawa Dominicans. The fifth institution granting first degrees that year was Caldwell College, sponsored by the Caldwell Sisters. In 1959 degrees were granted by the Dominican College of Blauvelt, founded by the Blauvelt Sisters. In 1961 the Nashville Dominicans granted associate degrees earned at Aquinas Junior College.

During the 1950's two communities of Dominican Sisters became independent of their European motherhouses.

One whose members came originally from Czechoslovakia to Pennsylvania in 1923 became the congregation of Oxford, Michigan, in 1950, under the leadership of Mary Joseph Gazda. The second group, from an Irish community in Lisbon, Portugal, became in 1952 the Dominican congregation of Kenosha, Wisconsin, with Mary Vincent Mullins as their major superior.

In the same decade two new communities were established for ministries other than education or health care. The Marian Dominican Catechists of Boyce, Louisiana were founded in 1954 by Bishop Charles Greco to serve in the diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana. Another Louisiana foundation, the Eucharistic Missionaries, had been established for catechetics and related ministries in 1927 by Catherine Bostick and Margaret Grouchy. Thirty years later they were affiliated to the Order of Preachers.

In 1979 the friars of the eastern and central provinces collaborated in a foundation unique to the Order: the combination of their personnel and resources to form the southern province of St. Martin de Porres, centered at New Orleans. The friars of the new province launched their mission of preaching and teaching in the South with a verbal motif given by the Master of the Order: "A New Birth in Hope."

Dominican Sisters who had come from Speyer, Germany in 1925 to serve in the northwestern states became the American congregation of Spokane, Washington in 1985. The Spokane Dominicans merged with the Sinsinawa Dominicans on February 26, 1995.

Early Foundations in the Twentieth Century (1904-1936)

One of the deterrents to full Dominican life among the early friars on the frontier was the lack of traditional emphasis on study, one of the basic elements given to the Order by St. Dominic That emphasis was sacrificed for many decades to the founding of the Church in parishes and dioceses, whether in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, New York, or other places. Some friars were sent to Europe to study; and Regents of Studies were sometimes appointed for brief periods. But not until the turn of the century was a proper House of Studies set up in 1905. Adjoining the new and struggling Catholic University of America. Degrees were conferred on the first graduates in 1906.

Dominican Sisters in the early 1900's were attending colleges and universities in increasing numbers at home and abroad, and beginning to establish colleges for young women. The Sinsinawa congregation opened St. Clara College (later Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois) which granted its first bachelor's degrees in 1904. The San Rafael Sisters opened their college in and conferred the first degrees in 1917.

The first decade of the century was marked by a foundation in Kansas, far from the concentration of Dominican men and women on the east and west coasts. It was from Brooklyn, however, that the former prioress of the Dominican community of Holy Cross, Antonina Fischer, founded in 1902 the congregation of Dominican Sisters of Great Bend who would offer ministry in education and health care.

Mother Mary Walsh

In 1910 Mary Walsh obtained the official recognition of the Church for the community of women she had gathered in New York in 1879 to offer health care to the poor in their homes. These Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor later moved their central house to Ossining on the Hudson. In July, 1995 three Dominican Congregations, Fall River, Newburgh, and Ossining joined to become the Dominican Sisters of Hope.

The friars who began the California foundation in 1850 were obliged by frontier limitations on personnel and resources to set aside their status as a full province in 1864 and assume that of a congregation or vicariate. But by 1912 the Province of Holy Name was fully restored, with their central house in Oakland and ministries along the coast from Mexico to Alaska.

Monasteries of nuns of the Order multiplied in the decade between 1915 and 1925, with eight new foundations established from coast to coast.

Nuns from Newark opened a monastery in Cincinnati in 1915 and another in Los Angeles in 1924. From the monastery of Farmington Hills, Michigan nuns formed a new community in Albany, New York in 1915; and in New Jersey a group from Union City opened a house in Summit in 1919. From the Bronx monastery a foundation was made in Menlo Park, California in 1921. Nuns from Catonsville, Maryland opened a monastery in West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1922 and another in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1925. In the same year, the monastery at Camden opened a daughter house at Syracuse, New York.

Between two world wars five colleges were founded. Providence College conducted by the Province of St. Joseph, granted its first degree in 1923. In succeeding years Siena Heights College, founded by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, granted degrees in 1924, Ohio Dominican College at Columbus in 1927, and Albertus Magnus in New Haven, both conducted by the Dominicans of St. Mary of the Springs, gave bachelor's degrees in the following year. At Berkeley, California the Dominican School of Theology and Philosophy, conducted by the Holy Name Province, gave degrees in 1936. The pioneer congregation among American Dominican Sisters, St. Catharine's, Kentucky, opened a junior college of the same name and first granted associate degrees in 1931.

Two widely separated provinces of the Newburgh congregation became autonomous congregations in 1923. The first, which was founded at Aberdeen, Washington in 1890, now became the Dominican congregation of Everett, and later Edmonds, Washington. The second group had become a Michigan province of the Newburgh congregation in 1892, centered at Adrian. In 1923 they became autonomous and their provincial, Camilla Madden, became the first prioress of the new Adrian congregation. At the end of the 1920's the Caldwell sisters, by arrangement of the bishops of Cleveland and were given the choice of joining a new branch of the Order at Akron, Ohio or remaining in their New Jersey community. This second Dominican congregation in Ohio, which came into being a century after the first one at Somerset, was established in 1929.

Capitoli emergenti del laicato domenicano nel XIX secolo

Records of Dominican laity in the early nineteenth century are sparse, and limited to the reception or profession of individual women and men. In the second half of the century there are records of chapters of lay Dominicans who met regularly, studied and prayed, and introduced others to the spirituality and apostolic charity of the Order of Preachers. Chapters were encouraged by the Dominican friars in their parishes, and by Dominican sisters and nuns in their institutions or monasteries. Notice of such chapters was given in the Rosary Magazine from the time of its inception in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Large and active chapters of men and women were found during that period in parishes in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, St. Paul, Louisville, New York City, Lewiston, Maine, and Boston. Records of individual tertiaries are even less available than those of certain chapters, although both were zealous about introducing others to the spirituality and apostolic charity of the Order of Preachers.

Introducing the Monasteries of Contemplative Nuns (1880-1909)

The earliest foundation of women in the Order of Preachers was that of the contemplative nuns established as a part of the Preaching of Jesus Christ by St. Dominic at Prouille, France, Theirs was the fourth branch of the Order to be established permanently in the United States. The nuns who came from monasteries in Germany and Ireland at mid-century were cloistered contemplatives. Their active apostolate had compelled the nuns to live in ambiguity, dependent upon dispensations, until each foundation, encouraged by successive Masters of the Order, made the decision to become an active congregation of Dominican Sisters.

In 1880 four nuns from Oullins in France, a monastery whose origins went back to Prouille, came to Newark, New Jersey to make the first permanent American foundation of cloistered nuns, the Monastery of St. Dominic. The founding prioress, Mary of Jesus, was an American. By 1889 members of the Newark foundation opened a second monastery in the Bronx, New York; and in 1906 another in Michigan at Farmington Hills.

New Jersey was the site in 1891 of a second monastic foundation from Europe. Four nuns of the Perpetual Rosary, founded in Belgium, opened a monastery in Union City. By 1910 they had established five more monasteries in as many states: Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1897; Catonsville, Maryland in 1899; Camden, New Jersey in 1900; Buffalo, New York in 1905; and in 1909, La Crosse, Wisconsin. The La Crosse monastery moved in 1984 to Washington, DC.

Beginnings in the Second Half-Century (1867-1896)

In 1873 seven sisters from the original Dominican community in Kentucky traveled to mid-Illinois to open a school and convent at Jacksonville. A year later, two of these sisters were requested to participate with President Ulysses Grant in an unusual event: the unveiling of a statue of Abraham Lincoln at his tomb in Springfield, the state capital. Grant asked them to represent all the religious women who had served during the Civil War in prisons and hospitals and on the battlefields; women whom President Lincoln had warmly praised, as Grant recalled. The sisters of Jacksonville returned to their less public Jacksonville ministry, but later moved their motherhouse to Springfield.

As immigration increased and the move from farm to city accelerated, new needs were met by new and old Dominican foundations. The urban ministry of the friars was expanded with their move to New York City in 1867, followed by the transfer of their provincial center from Kentucky to that city. Added to the founding of new urban parishes were the numerous week-long missions undertaken by preaching teams of the Province of St. Joseph in various cities.

Catherine Antoninus Thorpe

Attention to evolving human needs moved Catherine Antoninus Thorpe in 1876 to found a new community in New York, with the guidance of the Dominican provincial John Rochford. These Dominican Sisters, who later moved to Sparkill, New York, were founded to offer two much-needed ministries: giving food and shelter to indigent women, and caring for dependent children. The numbers of orphans had multiplied rapidly after the Civil War, owing not only to its fatalities and recurring epidemics, but also to the many deaths of immigrants en route to the United States.

Lucy Eaton Smith, a convert, was another who was challenged by new needs, especially among women. In 1880 she founded in Albany New York a Dominican congregation which would offer women the opportunity for spiritual retreats, related to the contemplative aspects of the sisters' lives; and also to provide residences for working women in the cities. Under the patronage of St. Catherine de Ricci the sisters of this community continue this dual ministry, centered at the motherhouse now located at Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

Four congregations of American Dominican Sisters, all dedicated primarily to education, formed new branches in the 1880's. Sisters from Newburgh, New York established a community in Jersey City in 1881. These became a congregation which moved their motherhouse later to Caldwell, New Jersey. From Columbus, Ohio a group of sisters led by Mary Agnes Magevny traveled to distant Galveston, Texas in 1882 to make a foundation which later moved to Houston. The record for long-distance travel to new beginnings was made when sisters from Brooklyn, urged by Joseph Alemany, the Dominican Archbishop of San Francisco, responded to the educational needs of German immigrants in California. By 1888 these sisters became the Dominican congregation of Mission San Jose, under the leadership of Maria Pia Backes. In the same year, sisters from the Jersey City community, led by Thomasina Buhlmeier, made a new foundation on the west coast at Tacoma, Washington.

During the final decade of the nineteenth century two more American branches of the "Ratisbon tree" rooted in Bavaria became new congregations.

From Newburgh came the sisters who formed the independent congregation of Blauvelt, New York in 1891. Their ministry for orphans had begun years earlier when Mary Ann Sammon, foundress of the new branch, brought homeless children into the Manhattan cloister to be cared for by the nuns.

The second new branch originated as a province of the Newburgh sisters in Michigan. In 1894 this province was separated from their motherhouse by the arbitrary action of their bishop to become a diocesan congregation, under the leadership of Aquinata Fiegler, the sisters' former provincial.

Mary Bertrand Sheridan

The initial ministry of Dominican Sisters among Franco-Americans began with a call from Canadian friars in New England. Mary Bertrand Sheridan and several Dominican sisters from Washington, D.C. responded to that call in 1892 by founding a community and school in Fall River, Massachusetts. In July, 1995 three Dominican Congregations, Fall River, Newburgh, and Ossining joined to become the Dominican Sisters of Hope.

In 1896 a Dominican congregation unique in its single ministry was founded by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, (a.k.a. Mother Mary Alphonsa Lathrop) the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, out of her personal experience of the needs of the poor. Their compassionate ministry is found in their title: The Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer. Their motherhouse is at Hawthorne, New York.

Mission to the Immigrants (1853-1865)

In 1853, after the foundations of the Order in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and California, the first Dominican women came from Europe to serve in the American church. These were four cloistered nuns from the Monastery of Holy Cross in Regensburg, Bavaria, led by Josepha Witzlhofer. Putting the needs of others before the practices of their traditional cloistered life, they answered the urgent call for teachers sent to Europe by German Catholic immigrants in the United States. They settled in Williamsburg, New York, an incipient area of Brooklyn, and tried valiantly to combine their monastic way of life with the strenuous work of conducting a school. In 1868 the nuns met another urgent need of the people by opening the first hospital conducted by American Dominicans. By 1900 the Brooklyn community and the many foundations which stemmed from it across the United States had become congregations of active Third Order sisters. Many years later, in 1947, the Brooklyn sisters moved their motherhouse to Amityville, N.Y.

Another Dominican community for the education of German immigrants began in Racine, Wisconsin in 1862. The foundress was Mary Benedicta Bauer, who, when prioress of Holy Cross Monastery in Bavaria, had sent the four nuns from Regensburg to Brooklyn in 1853. The Racine sisters, like their predecessors in Brooklyn, evolved from a contemplative monastic community to become an active congregation.

Only six years after the coming of the nuns from Bavaria to the Brooklyn convent of Holy Cross, German Catholics in lower Manhattan requested sisters from Brooklyn to open a monastery and school at St. Nicholas Parish.

The reply was favorable. The sisters soon welcomed young women to their novitiate on Second Street, and in 1869 became an autonomous monastery, with Mary Augustine Neuhierl as prioress. By 1883 this community had developed into a congregation with branch houses and moved their motherhouse up the Hudson to Newburgh, New York. In July, 1995 three Dominican Congregations, Fall River, Newburgh, and Ossining joined to become the Dominican Sisters of Hope.

Dominican nuns from Ireland also came to help immigrants to the United States at mid-century. In response to a call from New Orleans, Mary John Flanagan and five other nuns from Dublin opened a parish school in that city of French and Spanish culture in 1860. Coming from a contemplative monastery, as did the nuns from Germany, they struggled in this new environment with the ambiguities of a cloistered life in active ministry until they became the Congregation of St. Mary's of New Orleans.

Early Members of the Dominican Laity (1807-1833)

The foundations laid by Edward Fenwick included not only friars and sisters, but also members of the Dominican laity, then known as the Third Order. In 1807, the year after the beginnings in Kentucky, Fenwick wrote to Luke Concanen in Rome to ask about receiving men and women as lay Dominicans. He said, "I think the Third Order, if I understand it well, might be established with benefit to the pious people and much honour to our Lord."

Little is known about the first lay Dominicans in the United States. Among their sparse records from the early nineteenth century is that of the reception of one Betsy Wells by the Dominican friars at St. Rose in 1826. Another, in 1829, records the reception of two men, George Shock e John Roi, into the Third Order. In 1833 Bishop Flaget of Bardstown praised the Dominican women and men who nursed the cholera victims, including sisters, friars, and "virtuous lay women," presumably tertiaries, at St. Rose Priory. The lay Dominicans at Somerset, Ohio included two named Fanny and Theresa Naughton who served St. Joseph Convent all their adult lives. The early records pertained only to individuals. No references to early chapters or meetings of tertiaries have been discovered.