Glenmary Home Mission Sisters
GLENMARY HOME MISSION SISTERS
(G.H.M.S., Official Catholic Directory #2080); a diocesan congregation canonically established in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1952 and devoted exclusively to home mission work in the United States. In 1936 Father William Howard bishop, the founder, published a plan for a society of priests, brothers, and sisters to work in the then 1,000 U.S. counties without resident priests. Assigned to areas where there were few or no Catholics, the sisters were to perform social work and home and clinical nursing, and to teach religion. The first two women candidates joined Father Bishop in 1941. Eleven years later the community was officially established by Archbishop Karl J. Alter of Cincinnati. In 1953 Mother Mary Catherine Rumschlag was appointed superior general, and she then received the vows of 14 new members. In 1955 the community of 41 professed sisters elected Mother Catherine at their first general chapter. The congregation follows the Rule of St. Augustine and constitutions adapted from those of the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan, under whom the first sisters were trained. The mother-house is in Owensboro, Kentucky.
[j. schmid/eds.]