PROVIDENCE
509
PROVIDENCE
founded by Jean-Martin Moye in France in 1762 for
teaching poor girls and tending the sick. Their pres-
ent existence, constitution, and reUgious character are
due to Antonio Rosmini, of whose institute they really
form a part. In 1S31, at the request of Abbe Lowen-
bruck, the French sisters received into their house at
Portieux four pious but uneducated young women
from the Val d' Ossola and neighbouring Swiss valleys.
This priest, one of the moving spirits in the Institute
of Charity then beginning at Domodossola, wished
these young women to receive a religious training at
Portieux and then to found a house in Italy. They
returned in 18.32 and joined a community already or-
ganized at Locarno in Ticino, and designed to be a
novitiate as well as a school for the poor. He provided
no funds, however, and though they opened a school,
being but slenderly educated they could get no sala-
ries as recognized teachers. This bad management in-
duced Rosmini to intervene. He reformed their rule
to suit it to its new conditions, and thenceforward had
to assume entire responsibility for them. Thus they
were from the first a distinct body, the "Rosminiane",
as the Italians call them. A house for novices and
school for the education of teaching sisters was formed
at Domodossola in a former Ursuline convent. The
Holy See in its solemn approval of the Institute of
Charity in 1839 gave an indirect recognition of the
sisters also, as adopted children of the institute. From
that time they have steadily increased. The order is
mainly contemplative; but, when necessary, they un-
dertake any charitable work suitable to women, es-
pecially the teaching of girls and young children, visit-
ing the sick, and instructing in Christian doctrine.
The central houses have smaller establishments ema-
nating from and depending upon them. For each of
these groups there is one superioress, elected by the
professed sisters for three years, and eligible for three
years more. Aided by assistants, she appoints a pro-
curatrix over each lesser establishment and assigns the
grades and most of the offices. All the sisters return to
their central house every summer for a retreat and to
hold a chapter for the election of officers. The noviti-
ate lasts three years; the usual three vows are then
taken, at first for three years, then either renewed or
made perpetual. In each cliorcscthebishopisprotector.
There are houses in Italy, iMi^land, and Wales. In
Italy there were in 1908 al)out tJOO sisters and 60 nov-
ices. They have 64 establishments, most of which are
elementary schools for children and girls; there are
also several boarding-schools for girls, a few orphan-
ages, and a home for poor old men. They are scattered
in nine dioceses, some in Piedmont, others in Lom-
bardy . The principal houses are those of Borgomanero,
the central house for Italy, Domodossola, Intra, and
Biella. The English branch began in 1843 on the initi-
ative of Lady Mary Arundel, who had taken a house
at Loughborough in order to aid the Fathers of the In-
stitute in that mission. Into this house, fitted as a
convent, she received two Italian sisters, the first nuns
to wear a religious habit in the English Midlands since
the Reformation. A year later they opened a girls'
and infants' school, which was the first day-school for
the poor taught by nuns in England. The first Eng-
lish superioress was Mary Agnes Amherst, niece of the
Earl of Shrewsbury. Under her rule the present
central house was built at Loughborough. A board-
ing-school and middle and elementary schools are con-
ducted by the nuns. There are six other establish-
ments. At St. Ethcldreda's in London and at Whit-
wick, Rugby, and Bexhill they have girls' and infants'
schools, at Cardiff, two houses, one for visiting the
sick and aiding the poor, and the other a secondary
school and pupil-teachers' centre. Whitwick and St.
David's, Cardiff, are the only places in which their
work is not auxiliary to that of the Fathers of the In-
stitute. (See RosMiNiANS.)
William Henry Pollard.
Providence, Diocese of (Providentiensis), is
co-extensive with the State of Rhode Island. When
erected (17 Feb., 1872) it included also that portion
of south-eastern Massachusetts which has since 14
March, 1904, been set off as the Diocese of Fall River
(q. v.). It thus embraces an entire state, the majority
of whose population is Roman Catholic (State Cen-
sus, 1905). The city of Providence was the residence
of the Bishop of Hartford from the establishment of
that see in 1844 (see Hartford, Diocese of). In
1847 a Brief authorizing this transfer of residence was
obtained from the Propaganda.
The first appearance of Roman Catholic worship in the colony of Rhode Island was in the latter part of 1780, when the French army under Rochambeau encamped at Newport and Providence. It is known that there were several chaplains with the army who often said Mass publicly. Shortly afterwards (Feb., 1783) the colonial legislature repealed the act dis- franchising Roman Catholics. The Negro uprising in Guadeloupe, which followed the French Revolution, drove several Catholic families (French) to Newport and Bristol. In Newport also about 1808 there died one Joseph Wiseman, Vice-Consul to His Catholic Majesty of Spain. The building of Fort Adams at Newport and the beginnings of the cotton-mill in- dustry in Pawtucket brought in some Catholics to these parts in the twenties. The first priest assigned to Rhode Island was the Rev. Robert Woodley in 1828. The first land owned in the state for church purposes was purchased in Newport in 1828. During the thirties the growth was gradual and fluctuating. It was only in November, 1837, that Mass was said for the first time' in Providence in a Catholic church built for that purpose. In 1842 another parish was erected in Providence, but when Bishop Tyler (see Hartford) died in June, 1849, there were but six small parishes in the state. The famine in Ireland (1848) brought thousands to these parts who found work in the factories, foundries, machine shops, and jewelry shops then beginning to flourish in Rhode Island. During the fifties most of the still large and important English-speaking parishes were established; several costly churches were attempted; an orphan asylum was founded ; and a few very primitive schools were begun. The Knownothing Movement in March, 1855, disturbed Catholics because of threats against the convent. In the sixties the growth was appre- ciable but not extraordinary, and most of the congre- gations were in debt with very little to show for it — an evidence of their extreme poverty. When Bishop McFarland left Providence in 1872 to fix his residence at Hartford, he left behind him a poor cathedral and episcopal residence and a debt of $16,000 — so unable or so indifferent was his flock to second his admirable zeal and devotion.
Thomas Francis Hendricken, the first Bishop of Providence, was born in Kilkenny 5 May, 1827. He made his preliminary studies at St. Kieran's College, Kilkenny, which he attended in 1,844. He took up the study of theology at Maynooth in 1847 and was ordained by Bishop O'Reilly of Hartford at All Hallows College in 1851. After a .short period as assistant and pastor of a small parish he was trans- ferred to Waterbury, Conn., where he proved to be a successful church builder. He transformed the parish and seemed to be equal to any financial bur- den. Perhaps because of this remarkable talent he recommended himself to Bishop McFarland as the man Ijest fitted for the heavy labours that then awaited the first Bishop of Providence. He was con- secrated bishop in the cathedral at Providence on April 28, 1872, by Archbishop McCloskey of New York, the metropolitan of the province. He set to work at once to build an episcopal residence and a suitable cathedral. He had no sooner begun than the panic set in. Nothing daunted, and in spite of failing
