Little Daughters of Saint Joseph (PICCOLE FIGLIE DI SAN GIUSEPPE)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PICCOLE FIGLIE DI SAN GIUSEPPE. – A religious congregation founded in Montréal on 26 April 1857 by the Sulpician priest Antonio Mercier.

On 20 September 1897 it received the approval of the bishop, and on 28 January 1946 that of the Holy See. The religious dedicate themselves to serving the clergy and attend to the making of ecclesiastical vestments and sacred furnishings, with particular concern for the missions and the poor clergy. The Institute currently numbers 200 nuns in 5 houses.

BIBL.: Le Canada ecclésiastique, Montréal 1949, p. 978. PICCOLE FIGLIE DI SAN GIUSEPPE. – Founded as a pious association in 1888 by d. G. Baldo, archpriest of Ronco sull'Adige (diocese of Verona), to ensure regular service at the hospital he had established in the same parish. They were constituted as a religious Congregation by Bishop mons. Bacillieri on 20 April 1896.

Its purpose is the care of the sick, including those with contagious diseases, in hospitals, nursing homes, shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and at home; and the instruction and education of youth through nursery schools, schools of general and vocational education, boarding schools, orphanages, girls’ residential schools, and Sunday oratories. On 31 January 1913 the Institute received the decree of praise; on 3 April 1940, the definitive approval of the Constitutions. It currently has 82 houses and 515 sisters.

BIBL.: Arch. S. Congr. Religiosi, V. 72. Giulio Mandelli