The Sisters of Social Service are a Roman Catholic [religious institute]] of women founded in Hungary in 1923 by Margaret Slachta. The sisters adopted the social mission of the Catholic Church and Benedictine spirituality with a special devotion to the Holy Spirit.[1]
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The institute was founded by Margaret Slachta, who was a pioneer in social service, and a leading political figure, who trained other women for political action and in 1920 became the first woman elected to the Hungarian Parliament. She was inspired by the social and economic turmoil in Europe following the first World War when tens of thousands of people were living in wretched conditions across the continent. Hungary had seen its territory reduced by some sixty percent by the Allies and was also suffering from waves of political terror by competing forces, as well as conquest by Romania of much of its eastern regions.
A dedicated Catholic, Margaret was led to form a religious institute along with some of her coworkers to carry out their commitment to care for the needy and suffering around them. This congregation was established in 1923 under the name of the Sisters of Social Service. The members of the Society made the social mission of the Church the motivating thrust of their lives. They embraced Benedictine spirituality and had a special devotion to the Holy Spirit. The Sisters dedicated themselves to God by vows.
Like many earlier religious communities of women which arose in similar social conditions (e.g., the Sisters of the Visitation and the Ursulines) the Sisters saw their commitment as being out on the street, involved in the daily struggles of the poor, and they structured their way of life to serve this ministry. To this end, in place of the traditional religious habit of floor-length robes and veils, they adopted simple gray suits as worn by other women of the day. Their aim was to be involved in the social organizations serving these aims. This was to be lived through a daily routine directed by the Rule of Saint Benedict.
The Sisters quickly followed the massive emigration of the Hungarian population around the world, especially to Canada and California. From the beginning, the Sisters provided charitable services to the poor. They founded and maintained schools to train social workers, organized and led Christian women’s movements, worked on Christian formation and served on city councils. They were, in effect, the first religious congregation of social workers in the United States.
The foundress, Sister Margaret, and the other Sisters faced new challenges with the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of World War II. While continuing their commitment to social justice, they also worked to protect their Jewish neighbors. Many of them were sheltered in homes organized and run by members of the congregation on an individual, voluntary commitment, so as to protect the larger community of Sisters.
One member, Sister Sára Salkaházi, made such a commitment. In the presence of the Sister Superior, she signed a document committing herself to the care of a house of refuge, and in which she declared that she, and she alone, was responsible for it. On December 27, 1944, members of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross movement surrounded the hostel she ran and began to arrest the Jewish women being sheltered there, along with a Christian volunteer. Sister Sara arrived during the raid, and identified herself as the director of the house. She was immediately arrested and taken with the other women to the banks of the Danube, where they were all stripped and shot, and their bodies then thrown into the river. Hers was never recovered.
On September 17, 2006, with the authorization of Pope Benedict XVI, she was beatified in Budapest by the Cardinal Primate of Hungary as a martyr. She is the first Hungarian to be honored by the Catholic Church in this way who was not a member of the Hungarian royal family.
The entire congregation is credited with having saved the lives of about one thousand Jews from the Nazis.
The outbreak of the war and the subsequent occupation of Hungary by Communist forces had led to an separation of the communities of the Sisters in the United States and Canada from the mother house in Budapest. As a result, they quickly each became independent of Europe. The Sisters in the United States were headquartered in Los Angeles, California, while those in Canada were in Toronto.
The Sisters in the United States were led by Sister Frederica Horvath who had been one of the founding members of the sisterhood.[2]
Today the three separate congregations established from the work of Sister Margaret are formed into a federation to honor their joint commitment to her vision. They serve around the globe, with the European congregation serving in Eastern Europe, as well as in Cuba. The American one also works in Mexico, the Philippines and Taiwan.
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