Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: "One Solid Comfort" 1 Part I: "Charity Embraces Those Who Abound": The Spirit of Mercy Comes to America, 1846 to 1929 1. "The Spirit of our Institute is Mercy, as its Name Denotes": The Nature of Mercy in Nineteenth Century America 2. "Not Bound by Enclosure": The Sisters of Mercy Respond: 1846 to 1929 Part II: "This Mutual Love and Union": From Amalgamation to a Post Vatican II World: 1929 to the 1980s 3. New Community, Same Spirit 4. Demanding Decades: Mercy Response to the Clergy and the Laity: 1928 to 1962 5. "Change is Blowing Hard": Renewal of Religious Life in the 1960s and 1970s 6. Reinventing Community and Service to the World Part III: New Life, New Paths, Same Spirit: Carrying Mercy into the Twenty-First Century, 1980s to 2008 7. "This Far by Faith": Reimagined Religious Life and the Sisters of Mercy Epilogue: West Midwest and the Legacy of the Sisters of Mercy Chicago Regional Community Appendixes A. Parish Grade Schools, Academies, High Schools, Universities, and Alternative Schools B. Hospitals, Facilities, and Residences Owned and/or Sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, Chicago Regional Community Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

A sweeping history of women motivated by faith to respond to those in need and a desire to be a part of a larger religious community of women, the Sisters of Mercy

About the Author

Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, currently the assistant director of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, is an adjunct in history at Valparaiso University. She has taught American, women's, and religious history at universities in New Hampshire and Indiana. She has also worked as the historian for the Sisters of Mercy Chicago Regional Community, writing their community's history.

Reviews

"A timely and probing analysis of the Chicago Mercy's and how they met the unremitting challenges of both growth and restructuring over their 150 year history. The particular strength of Mary Beth Fraser Connolly's book, Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community derives from its in-depth examination of the events and decisions arising from Vatican II. The process of change and adaptation was demanding offering no easy answers. This research contributes much to our understanding of Catholic women's identities, feminisms and leadership."-Carmen M. Mangion, Birkbeck, University of London