Sacred Heart of Jesus, Daughters of the Charity of the
SACRED HEART OF JESUS, DAUGHTERS OF THE CHARITY OF THE
(FCSCJ; Official Catholic Directory #0750); a congregation of women religious with pontifical approbation whose motherhouse is in La Salle-de-Vihiers, in the Diocese of Angers, France. The community came into existence early in the 19th century when the pastor of La Salle-de-Vihiers, Jean Maurice Catroux, unable to obtain religious teachers for the children of his parish, decided to found a new congregation. One of his parishioners, Rose Giet, became the first sister in 1823.
The congregation continued to grow in France until, at the end of the 19th century, anticlerical laws closed religious schools and forced the sisters to seek new fields of labor. In 1905 four sisters came to the U.S. and opened a school in Newport, VT. In 1906 they extended their work to Champlain, NY, and in 1908, to Canada. In the U.S., the sisters are engaged in academic education at all levels, catechetics, pastoral ministries and counseling. The U.S. headquarters is in Littleton, NH; the generalate is in La Salle de Vihiers, France.
[s. l. grandprÉ/eds.]