History
The religious institute began when McAuley used an inherited fortune to build a "House of Mercy" in Dublin that provided educational, religious, and social services for poor women and children. The House aroused local opposition, however, it being traditional for nuns rather than lay women to engage in this sort of activity. Eventually the church hierarchy agreed to the formation of a non-cloistered institute, and the sisters became known informally as the "walking nuns" for their ability to care for the poor outside a convent. The house still sits today, as the Mercy International Centre.
In the year of 1992, the leaders of the various congregations created the Mercy International Association to foster collaboration and cooperation. The purpose of the Association is to provide support and foster collaboration, organisation and inspiration for the ministries of Sisters of Mercy and their associates.
On 12 December 2011, the 15 independent congregations in Australia and Papua New Guinea of the Sisters of Mercy combined to form a single congregation numbering circa 900 sisters.
Read more about this topic: Sisters Of Mercy
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
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“I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.”
—J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)