historical background
The St. Louis Catholic Archives Collective is composed mainly of archives attached to women’s monastic communities. But what is monasticism and how did French women’s orders like the Sisters of Saint Joseph, the Sisters of the Visitation, and the Society of the Sacred Heart, come to establish such a transformative presence in St. Louis?
The story of these orders begins not in the streets of St. Louis, but centuries earlier – in the deserts of early Christianity and the cloisters of medieval Europe. Long before they established schools and hospitals in American cities, women religious were part of a tradition rooted in withdrawal from the world. This tradition, known as monasticism, emerged in the early centuries of Christianity as a way of life characterized by spiritual devotions, ascetic discipline, intellectual pursuits, and a deliberate separation from secular concerns. For both men and women, it represented a radical choice: to step away from the everyday and dedicate oneself to prayer and contemplation.
At the heart of monastic life was this concept of contemptus mundi – a rejection of worldly attachments – and a commitment to vows of poverty, and chastity, and obedience. Monks and nuns lived according to a Regula – or Rule – a strict set of guidelines that governs the daily life of individuals living within a monastic community. Despite the ideals of contemptus mundi, many monasteries grew into powerful institutions – they amassed wealth, cultivated vast estates, and became intellectual and political centers that would deeply influence European society for centuries.
Central to the medieval experience of women living the religious life was the concept of claustration, the enclosure of nuns within convent walls. This practice stemmed from a complex interplay of 1) theological understandings of women as inherently vulnerable and 2) societal norms that called for women to subordinate themselves to male authority. Whether as daughters, wives, or nuns, women were expected to operate under the oversight of male guardians. Yet, history demonstrates that even within these seemingly impenetrable walls, a surprising degree of permeability existed. Many women religious, through high social standing or resourcefulness, often found ways to navigate (and sometimes circumvent) these limitations, and achieved exceptional political power.
For Catholics, this sweeping movement prompted a re-evaluation of traditional practices and triggered a significant shift in the role of women within Catholic religious communities. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was particularly concerned with ensuring that monastic communities were morally irreproachable and operating along unquestionably orthodox lines in response to both Protestant and Catholic critics. This meant enforcing the practice of claustration for women’s congregations.
But at the same time, more and more women felt called to engage with their wider community by providing education and care to the poor and ill outside their convent walls. While charitable acts were not entirely new to nuns’ spiritual practices, the Reformation marked a pivotal moment where charity, rather than the medieval focus on penitence, began to emerge as the dominant spiritual mode for women.
New religious communities for women emerged out of this context – the “third orders.” These orders operated outside the direct control of male bishops, often lacked a formal Rule, and did not require cloistered living.
The Sisters of Saint Joseph were founded in Le Puy, France, in 1650 by the Jesuit priest, Father Jean Pierre Medaille. They stand as a prime example of these uncloistered “third orders.” Sister Mary McGlone, a biographer from the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, describes these women as “countercultural” for defying the post-Tridentine Church’s dictum of “aut murus aut maurus” (either walled enclosure or marriage) as the only acceptable paths for pious women. Rather, their defining characteristic, or “charism,” lay in active service within the community through a focus on hands-on work. To better serve the needs of the times, the Sisters of St. Joseph opened schools, administered hospitals, visited jails, and taught handiwork to poor women and children to help them become financially independent.
The Sisters of the Visitation of Holy Mary were founded in 1610 by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal in Annecy, France, in this same spirit. The order’s name was chosen to reflect the sisters’ mission to emulate the Virgin Mary’s joyful visit to her cousin Elizabeth – an event known in Christian tradition as The Visitation. But ultimately the Archbishop of Lyon opposed the idea that these sisters would engage in charitable work outside the convent and the Visitation became a formal religious order only after Francis conceded that his Sisters would abide by the traditional rules of enclosure and take solemn vows. When Visitation sisters later established houses on the American frontier, they discovered that a strict hierarchical cloistered life was not always practical – or possible.
By the early nineteenth century, uncloistered women’s orders became more accepted by the Catholic Church, who recognized the crucial role nuns performed through their social services. When the Society of the Sacred Heart was founded in France in 1800, the nuns who wished to dedicate their lives to educating young secular women no longer faced the same kinds of opposition the Sisters of the Visitation did back in 1610. Lead by the intrepid Mother Philippine Duchesne, sisters of the Sacred Heart founded both missions and schools along the American frontier.
Their resistance to traditional claustration, deemed “revolutionary” by some, empowered the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of the Visitation, and the Society of the Sacred Heart to embark on global missions, a previously unimaginable feat for women in religious life.