The 2009 New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade is dedicated to the Sisters of Charity.  The Sisters are being honored for their many charitable works which began  in New York City in 1817.

The Sisters have marched up New York’s Fifth Avenue in many of these Parades,  but always as part of a delegation representing a school, a ministry or an Irish county.  This year will be the first time they will be marching in their own Congregational contingent. It is part of the observations of the bicentennial of the founding of the  Sisters of Charity by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1809.

Several Sisters attended the January 14th installation ceremony for this year’s Grand Marshall Michael J. Gibbons and his aides. When John Dunleavy, Parade Chairman, introduced the Congregation’s representatives, they received a standing ovation from the other attendees who were well familiar with the Sisters’ long history of good works. Over 600 people will march in the Sisters of Charity contingent, which will be directly behind the family of the Grand Marshall.
The Sisters’ group will include:

• almost a third of the New York Congregation itself, including Sr. Dorothy Metz, President, and the six members of the Council
• many family members and friends of the Sisters
• colleagues from health and child care ministries established by the Sisters
• current students and alums from schools founded by the Sisters, including the College of Mount Saint Vincent (Bronx)
• representatives from five other congregations that trace their roots back to the founding in 1809 by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton:

o Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth (Convent Station, NJ)
o Sisters of Charity – Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada)
o Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill (Greensburg, PA)
o Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth (Kansas)
o The Daughters of Charity, Northeast Province (Albany, NY)

Sisters Alice Darragh, Jane Iannucelli and Dominica Rocchio of the New York Congregation will march directly behind the contingent’s banner…dressed in the distinctive, traditional habit which includes the iconic black bonnet. They will represent the first three Sisters sent to New York by Mother Seton in 1817:  Sr. Felicité Brady, Sr. Cecilia O’Conway and Sr. Rose White.

These three pioneering women came to Manhattan to take charge of St. Patrick’s Asylum, also known as the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. At that time, parentless Catholic children were lost to the faith if they were taken in by Protestant orphan societies.

With this mission, the Sisters of Charity become the first congregation of women religiousto establish a permanent community in what was then the Diocese of New York. Elizabeth Ann Seton, herself a native New Yorker, would become the first native-born American
saint when she was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1975.

The Sisters’ Ministries

In 1822, the Sisters began to run the girls’ department of St. Patrick’s Free School and opened an academy for girls in the parish. This began the Congregation’s notable ministry in education. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Sisters of Charity founded and
taught in almost every parochial school in New York City. They also helped establish the large, well-run Catholic school system in the Archdiocese. St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School is still in operation on Mott Street in lower Manhattan, in a building dating from the
1820s.

Since 1817, over 4,000 Sisters of Charity of New York have served Irish and other immigrant groups and their descendants in New York City and beyond. They established a total of 285 missions, including elementary and secondary schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the aged.
Locale Total #

Manhattan 94
Bronx 28
Staten Island 19
Brooklyn 18
Queens   3
Suffolk County   3
Westchester 46
Upper Hudson Valley 29

New Jersey   6
Connecticut   2
Rhode Island   1
Pennsylvania 12
North Carolina   1
The Bahamas 17
Guatemala   6

Among today’s sponsored ministries are:

• St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers (Manhattan & Westchester)
• St. Joseph’s Medical Center (Yonkers)
• The New York Foundling (Manhattan)
• The Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center (Manhattan)
• The John A. Coleman School (Manhattan & Westchester)
• supportive housing for the elderly, low income families, and the chronically mentally ill
• a soup kitchen, multi-service center, and an organic farm in Dutchess County

About the Parade

This year will be the 248th consecutive year that New York’s Irish Catholics march to celebrate their faith and culture. The Sisters of Charity consider it very special to march in the largest parade in the world during the bicentennial of their founding. They appreciate this honor and the unique chance it offers them to share their story of service with those who might not be familiarwith it. The Congregation’s Parade Committee is chaired by Sr. Mary Ellen O’Boyle.

The parade can be viewed on March 17th via a link that will be available from the home page of the official parade site at http://nyc-st-patrick-day-parade.org . So if you’re not able to watch WNBC-TV New York, channel 4, directly that day, you can still enjoy a live
streaming of the parade as it is broadcast.

You can learn more about the Sisters of Charity of New York at www.scny.org  ■

For more information, contact:
Christine Haggerty
718-549-9200  x 245