MISSIONARIES OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF AARLE-RIXTEL, SISTERS. — Although founded in 1885 by Fr. Francesco Pfanner as an association of lay collaborators to assist the missionary work of the Mariannhill Fathers, particularly in the education of girls, from the outset they constituted themselves as a religious congregation. On 5 February 1888, through the efforts of the Vicar Apostolic of Natal, Bishop Jolivet, O.M.I., they received the blessing of Leo XIII.
The sisters, who until then had been established only in South Africa, founded a novitiate house in Helden-Panningen (Holland) in 1891. The Institute’s Constitutions were approved by the Holy See in 1903, and in the same year the generalate was built in Aarle-Rixtel (Holland). The Constitutions were adapted to the new Code of Canon Law in 1918 and received new approval from the Holy See.
The Missionaries of the Precious Blood number about 900 sisters in Holland, Germany, Denmark, South and East Africa, Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, and the United States.