Anything of Which a Woman Is Capable

The title, Anything of Which a Woman is Capable, comes from Father Jean Pierre Médaille, the Jesuit who brought together the first Sisters of St. Joseph in the mid-seventeenth century. Since 1650, congregations of St. Joseph have grown in Europe, the Americas, India and the Orient, all attracting women who are called to do anything of which they are capable to serve their dear neighbor. This volume tells stories of the foundations of congregations in France and then, beginning in 1836, in the United States. It introduces the reader to intrepid women whose willingness to serve knew no boundaries and whose strong personalities provided an ample match for Church leaders who either encouraged or tried to control their zeal. The copious footnotes make this a valuable addition to the history of Catholic women religious in the United States as well as to the history of Catholicism.

Anyone who wants to know more about where and why the sisters did what they did will find interesting responses in the lives of the women chronicled in this volume. Covering a geography from New York City to Los Angeles and Superior, Wisconsin to Florida, you will meet sisters who struggled with poverty and adversity, all for the sake of the people they called their "Dear Neighbor."

Mary M. McGlone, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, hails from Denver and has ministered in the U.S., Latin America and Eastern Europe. A past president of the U.S. Catholic Mission Association, she is the author of "Comunidad Para El Mundo, A History of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and the Vice Province of Peru" and "Sharing Faith Across the Hemisphere," the winner of the 1998 Catholic Press Association award for Best History Book of the Year. Sr. Mary holds a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from St. Louis University and has taught on theology faculties in the U.S. and in Peru.