Good Shepherd Sister

Good Shepherd Sister, member of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, a Roman Catholic religious order of nuns devoted to helping people in poor and marginalized communities, especially girls and women. The order was formerly called the Religious of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, and members retain the abbreviation R.G.S. after their names. Unlike many other orders, the Good Shepherd Sisters comprise both apostolic and contemplative branches united under the same congregation. The former branch devotes itself to outreach ministries and the latter to prayer.

Foundation by Father John Eudes

The congregation traces its history to an order founded by French Oratorian priest John Eudes in 1641 in Caen, France. Known as the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, the order originated as a refuge to rehabilitate and educate destitute girls and women who had worked as prostitutes. The religious sisters lived in the refuge with the women they served, and other communities were established in France, including at Tours. These communities were organized independently (that is, without a motherhouse or a mother superior) but under the same mission. In 1666 the order received approval from Pope Alexander VII.

Changes and centralization under Sister Mary Euphrasia

During the French Revolution (1787–99) the order was virtually destroyed. The communities, including the refuge in Tours, were eventually restored. In 1814 Rose-Virginie Pelletier entered the community in Tours and took the name Sister Mary Euphrasia. In 1829, a few years after becoming superior of the Tours community, she founded a convent at Angers, France, which she called Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd in honor of a former institution there that had used the name Good Shepherd. Four more convents followed in the next five years. In the meantime, she had founded a contemplative branch called the Sisters of Saint Magdalen, which lived in the same convents as the Good Shepherd Sisters. The Sisters of Saint Magdalen were so-called penitent women who wanted to live a cloistered life and who performed labor such as embroidery that they sold to help support the convent.

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In 1835 Pope Gregory XVI approved a unified administration for the convents under the title Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd. This made the community at Angers the motherhouse of the congregation and Sister Mary Euphrasia the mother general. The congregation spread rapidly, and convents were established throughout the world. Meanwhile, the congregation founded by Father John Eudes continued to establish convents devoted to the same work of educating and rehabilitating penitent women and girls.

Magdalene laundries

In Ireland these penitential institutions, operated with the Irish government, gained notoriety. Typically called Magdalene laundries, they developed into places where the girls and women who were admitted into them performed unpaid laundry work and other types of labor as punishment for having violated moral codes. The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge were among four religious orders that operated Magdalene laundries throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Most of the women and girls entered these places unwillingly, and some spent the rest of their lives in one after being admitted. Whereas the penitential refuges in other countries had either closed by the mid-20th century or reformed their missions, the Magdalene laundries in Ireland remained open until the late 20th century. The last of these, located on Seán McDermott Street in Dublin and operated by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, closed in October 1996.

(Read Britannica’s article “Ground Zero: Ireland and the Church Abuse Crisis.”)

Merger of congregations and 21st-century missions

In 1966 the motherhouse of the Good Shepherd Sisters was relocated from Angers to Rome. In 1990 both the congregations founded by St. John Eudes (canonized in 1925) and St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier (canonized in 1940) were united internationally as the Union of Our Lady of Charity. In 2014 the congregations officially merged as the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd.

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The apostolic branch of the order remains active in ministries in schools, hospitals, prisons, and shelters throughout the world, focusing on empowering women and girls, offering counseling services to families, and helping those in need, such as unhoused individuals or people in recovery from addiction. Along with being devoted to a life of prayer, the contemplative sisters have a tradition of baking and distributing altar bread for use as Holy Communion hosts in local parishes.