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Homeless, runaway children in New York, often sexually trafficked...unwed mothers in Washington seeking support... imprisoned women in the Capital Region wondering how they'll make it when they're released: The Daughters of Charity living in the religious order's Albany Province have seen it all.

The sisters live to serve the poor in a simple, humble and loving way, as founders St. Vincent de Paul, a French peasant priest, and St. Louise de Marillac, an aristocratic widow, intended.

Vocations to the Daughters of Charity and their fellow order, the Vincentian Fathers, have ebbed in recent years. But as sisters in the Albany Diocese celebrate the 350th anniversary of the founders' deaths, they are hopeful for the future of the congregations, given the rise in members in South America, Africa and Asia.

"If it weren't for [the founders], we wouldn't be here," said Sister Mary Rose McGeady, DC, one of about 15 sisters living in the order's provincial house in Menands. Another 47 senior sisters live in the attached St. Louise House.

The anniversary is "another opportunity for us to celebrate who they were and who they are still for us," she added.

Lasting legacy
Ss. Vincent and Louise built orphanages, homes for elderly people and unwed mothers, soup kitchens and hostels for homeless people in France in the 1600s. The saintly duo are considered the first to engage laypeople in the work of the Church and the founders of modern social work, said Rev. Thomas Krafinski, CM, chaplain for the Daughters of Charity in Menands.

Father Krafinski is one of 315 Vincentian priests and 30 brothers in the United States - and about 3,000 in 60 countries worldwide.

The priests founded schools of higher education such as St. John's University in New York, Niagara University in Niagara Falls and DePaul University in Chicago.

More than 23,000 women belong to the Daughters of Charity in 90 countries. There are about 160 sisters in the Albany Province, which includes six northeastern states and Canada.

Every year, the sisters renew their vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service to the poor. They have never been cloistered and have not required a habit since after the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, when many changes were implemented in the Church. The Daughters wear simple clothes in white and blue with a Vincentian pin.

Members of the Vincentian Family, as the Daughters and Fathers are called, can be seen at work throughout the world. When the Jan. 12 earthquake devastated Haiti, one of 31 Daughters of Charity serving there perished. Each province in the U.S. and Latin America then sent a sister to work with the people in Port-au-Prince.

Sister Mary Walter Boyle, DC, of Menands, recalled building a hospital in Haiti in the 1980s. She also managed hospitals in the U.S. for almost 40 years.

A few American sisters, as well as many Australian sisters, were sent to build a center for the mentally and physically disabled in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, where society tends to reject persons with disabilities.

Vincentian priests serve 50,000 people in parishes in the banana plantations of Panama. Before the Haitian earthquake, they had been drafting requests to support new businesses to remove people from poverty. Now, Father Krafinski is appealing for support for a new location for a company that sells coconuts and mangoes.

"We work very hard to be like St. Vincent, who tried very hard to be like Jesus," he explained. "We're just like ordinary people. We're not fancy theologians or anything like that. We tend to be men who speak at the level [of] real people."

Father Krafinski's 42 years as a priest have been spent as an educator, a chaplain at St. John's University and a leader of parish mission trips. The U.S. priest shortage doesn't concern him; he says it's the Holy Spirit's way of getting the laity involved.

Hope looms
"I am impressed by the people in the Church - by their holiness and their prayerfulness and their goodness," Father Krafinski said. "People will take the food off their own table if you ask them."

The number of Daughters of Charity has declined by 23,000 since 1946, when Sister Mary Rose entered the order. "We just put it in the hands of God," she said.

But more women are joining the order in places like Vietnam, Africa and Brazil. There are 600 Vietnamese sisters, and nine provinces opened in Africa in the last 60 years.

This is welcome news to Sister Mary Rose. She said it always used to be white women going into poor African countries.

"I'm sure it's much more meaningful to the African people to have their own people come in to evangelize them."

(03/18/10) [[In-content Ad]]

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