Sisters of the Precious Blood (Baden)

Young women from Baden, Germany joined together for the perpetual adoration of the Most Precious Blood in the Blessed Sacrament, under the guidance of Reverend Karl Rolfus. The group began as a contemplative community. One of their number made a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Einsiedeln, Switzerland and to the nearby St. Anne shrine in Steinerberg. As at that time, German religious communities were not allowed to accept new members, Magdalene Weber led twelve of them to Switzerland. The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood was founded in Steinerberg, Switzerland on September 8, 1845, as a contemplative community. However, as Swiss law prohibited all strictly contemplative orders, they developed an apostolic character, as well.[1] In the spring of 1848, the community re-located to Ottmarsheim, France, in the French Alsace, where, as they were German, they were precluded from teaching and so became contemplative once more.

In 1857 Rev. Herman Kessler, pastor of Gurtweil, Baden, who had long desired to establish a home for destitute children and a normal school for the training of religious teachers, asked for six members of the community of the Sisters of the Precious Blood from Ottmarsheim, Alsace. They responded and began their work with twelve poor children under the direction of Father Kessler. Under the auspices of Archbishop von Vicari of Freiburg, a novitiate and normal school were established; the latter was affiliated with the educational department of Karlsruhe. Other schools and academies were opened. At Gurtweil, the Sisters taught students to make Church vestments, the beginning of their Ecclesiastical Art ministry.[2] In 1860, the congregation split, the contemplative sisters in Ottmarsheim, and the more apostolic in Gurtweil.

In 1869 Bishop Junker of Alton, Illinois, asked for sisters for his diocese. In 1870 a number of sisters sailed for Belle Prairie (named Piopolis in 1877) in the Diocese of Alton, arriving on March 2. Meantime Bishop Baltes succeeded Bishop Junker; he entrusted to them several parochial school and promised further assistance on condition that the community should establish itself permanently in his diocese subject to his authority. The Superior of the community returned to Germany to present the matter to the Motherhouse.[3]

In September 1871, Mother Augusta Volk, superior of the mother-house at Gurtweil, and twelve more sisters arrived in Springfield. Mother Augusta was apprehensive of a premature separation from Gurtweil, and was also opposed to limiting the sisters' activity to one diocese only. She went to St. Louis where through the efforts of Father Muehlsiepen, Vicar- General of St. Louis, the Sisters of the Precious Blood were received into the Archdiocese of St. Louis (1872) and obtained charge of a number of schools in Missouri and Nebraska. In the autumn of 1872, another fourteen sisters from Gurtweil arrived at the novitiate established in Belle Prairie. To make room for them, twenty sisters relocated to St. Louis, where the Rev. F. Leygraff, pastor of St. Agatha's had provided a home for the sisters until a motherhouse could be built.[3]

In 1873 the Kulturkampf had reached its climax and the entire community was expelled from Germany; some went to Rome, others settled in Bosnia, Hungary. In September, Fr. Muehlsiepen met forty-nine sisters in New York and conducted them to St. Louis, where the new Motherhouse was completed by July, 1875.[3]

At that time, the congregation split once again. Mother Clementine Zerr, mistress of novices, with a few professed sisters and the entire novitiate had resolved to follow the dictates of Bishop Baltes and establish a separate community in Belle Prairie.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Congregations of the Precious Blood". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

• History