Ohio History

Introduction

In 1864, Alexandre Jandel, the master general of the Order of St. Dominic (a Catholic religious order), wrote a letter to the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine in Ohio and Kentucky informing them that they were no longer under the jurisdiction of the American leader of the Order of St. Dominic, the provincial,¹ but were now under the authority of the local bishops, diocesan congregations.² The Sisters responded, requesting to be placed “back under the jurisdiction of the Rev. Provincial.”³ To them, becoming diocesan communities meant that they might lose their places within the international Dominican community; moreover, they feared that their position under Episcopal leadership would possibly limit their autonomy within the local dioceses and allow for various abuses of power by the diocesan clergy. Despite the feeling that Jandel’s proclamation had been abrupt, the question of who had authority over the Sisters had been an ongoing debate since their origins in antebellum America.⁴

Founded by American women, the Kentucky and Ohio Dominican Sisters [End Page 9] of St. Catharine faced an uncertain future from their inception. Within the first four decades of their existence, the clergy nearly disbanded the Sisters multiple times as these women struggled to find their place within the international and American communities. This article examines two such moments: the possible dissolution of the Sisters by Raphael Muños, a Dominican friar, and their placement under the diocesan clergy by Alexandre Jandel, the leader of the international order. The Sisters actively took part within these conflicts navigating the various lines of authority and power within the nineteenth-century American Catholic Church.

While the topic of nineteenth-century Catholic sisters’ agency has been well explored, it has not fully included the history of the Dominican Sisters.⁵ Perhaps the most analytical study of the Sisters is Margaret Hogan’s dissertation, “Sister Servants: Catholic Women Religious in Antebellum Kentucky.” Hogan’s work places the Dominican Sisters in conversation with other women religious, particularly the Loretto and the Sisters of Charity. Through her comparison, Hogan’s dissertation identifies themes for the life of women religious in Kentucky.⁶ This article places these local politics within the order in the context of larger debates over jurisdiction and authority. It explores the boundaries of [End Page 10] female agency and action within the expanding Catholic Church. In doing so, it adds to the vibrant historiography on nineteenth-century women religious, both in the American Catholic Church and the American Midwest.

Origins and Key Terms

The organization of the Order of St. Dominic (the Dominicans) is key to understanding the position of the Dominican Sisters in nineteenth-century America; it must be noted that what follows is a summary of a complicated hierarchy and history. Women have been part of the Dominican order since the medieval period. They could be members of the Second Order (enclosed nuns) or the Third Order (laywomen).⁷ According to the Medieval Constitutions, “The Second are the enclosed Nuns who make solemn vows. The Third branch only make simple vows and do not observe enclosure. The Third was originally intended. . . . for maried [sic] and unmarried persons living at home.”⁸ No matter their designation, women participated within the Dominican missions of preaching and education.

The distinction between the Second and Third Orders meant a difference in governance, authority, and jurisdiction. According to the original thirteenth-century constitutions, there was to be a balance between the local, regional, and international hierarchy.⁹ The Second Order was historically under the jurisdiction of the Dominican master general. These women were considered members of the Order of St. Dominic and had a level of protection from the local clergy. The Third Order typically consisted of localized lay congregations under the authority of the local bishops. These laywomen were associated with the Dominican order but held a marginal status and were technically not under [End Page 11] the jurisdiction of the master general, the leader of the international order.¹⁰ There were only certain situations in which Third Order Sisters would be considered under the authority of the master general, particularly if they took solemn vows.¹¹

The Sisters of Kentucky adapted their European origins to the American climate. The Sisters in Kentucky understood themselves to be Second Order nuns who acted as members of the Third Order for practical reasons of teaching and evangelization. Due to this mixing of orders, the Sisters were torn between conflicting jurisdictions. Within the American province, the Sisters were under the immediate authority of the American provincial (the leader of the congregation in America) and then answered to the master general. Yet, due to these women’s associations with the Third Order, the local bishops could claim jurisdiction over the Sisters. The confusion over the Sisters’ status had long-lasting ramifications, from their inception in the 1820s through the 1860s.¹²

Early Years in Kentucky

The Dominican Sisters were not the first congregation of women religious in Kentucky; they were preceded by the Sisters of the Loretto and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.¹³ Edward Fenwick, the founder of the Dominican community in the United States, had wanted to create a congregation of Dominican Sisters as early as 1812, believing they were needed to help the Sisters of Charity. However, these plans did not come to fruition until March 1821, when the bishop of Bardstown and the pro-vicar general in Rome gave Fenwick and [End Page 12] Samuel Thomas Wilson, the provincial and prior at St. Rose, permission to recruit women for a new religious congregation. Wilson preached to the women of local parishes in Kentucky, calling them to join the new congregation. He and Fenwick imagined the Sisters would work in association with the Dominican friars and would dedicate themselves to the religious education of children. Nine local women quickly answered Wilson’s call.¹⁴

According to their Original Rule, adapted by Prior Wilson, the Sisters were part of the St. Joseph Province, the Dominican friars’ governing body in the United States. The master general established the Province of St. Joseph in 1805, which oversaw the regional ministry as well as a seminary for Dominican friars. The Dominican Sisters also fell under its jurisdiction. Their house would still be overseen by a superior, elected from within, with a friar serving as the confessor to the Sisters. The role of the male confessor varied greatly, with some members of the Dominican brotherhood taking more active roles in the Sisters’ lives than others. Despite the importance of the American province in the Sisters’ governance, the provincial was still accountable to the master general, who held the ultimate authority over the American missions, including the convent.¹⁵

Wilson’s Original Rule largely limited the role of the friars. While the Sisters were under the control of the provincial, the leader of the Dominicans in America, the Original Rule only assigned him specific roles. In certain cases, the provincial could appoint a mistress of novices and a subprioress, such as in 1853, when Mother Joanna Clark resigned her position.¹⁶ The provincial also granted the Sisters’ permission to speak to “secular” priests, or those outside of the order.¹⁷ The lack of emphasis on male leadership in the Original Rule embodied the democracy inherent within the Order of St. Dominic.

The Original Rule focused more on the female hierarchy within the convent [End Page 13] rather than on their relationship with the male clergy. The Original Rule established strict guidelines for female leadership as well as protocol for all matters of disciplinary action. The convent would be led by a superior or a prioress.¹⁸ The superior/prioress (the terms were interchangeable in the Original Rule) had final authority over all members of the house. In the letter affirming the original superior’s confirmation, Prior Wilson wrote: “I hereby give you all spiritual and temporal authority over said college of religious Nuns, as all Prioresses of our holy Order possess and our holy Constitution authorizes.”¹⁹ The women’s religious leader was able to “dispense [punishment or something thereof] not to the whole community but only to particular persons in particular cases.”²⁰ She could also do favors for the Sisters, giving them permission to talk in public, secular spaces.²¹

The Sisters’ Early Rules reflected the situation in which they found themselves; they were an experiment within the order and the American community, so they allowed them some flexibility and placed more emphasis on female leadership. Moreover, it placed them firmly as part of the Dominican order, under the leadership of the provincial and the master general rather than as a diocesan congregation under the leadership of the bishop.

A Question of Order

Despite the Sisters’ agency under the Original Rule, the 1823 Constitution placed the Dominican Sisters in a perilous position. Wilson adopted the Original Rule from the Second Order to suit the conditions of the American environment. The Original Rule stated, “Three hundred years after in 1513 some devout women of [End Page 14] this Third Order desirous of living a more strict life in common applied to the General of our Order. . . . who dress up several regulations for their use both from the rule of St. Augustine and from the Constitutions of the Nuns of our Second Order.”²² The Sisters were to “make their solemn vows like the Nuns of our Second Order.”²³ The Sisters’ vows followed this decree, affirming, “Whereas for want of proper enclosure I cannot make solemn vows, but only simply ones, my intention and wishes are as soon as proper enclosure can be procured, to join in petitioning His Holiness to allow us to make solemn vows as nuns of the Second Order usually make.”²⁴ In many ways, these women identified more as nuns rather than lay members of the Third Order.²⁵ It was this mixing of two identities that worried some of the clergy.

The mixing of the two orders reflected a grey area in terms of authority. As members of the Second Order, the Sisters should have been under the jurisdiction of the master general, but as members of the Third Order they would be under that of the bishop. The 1823 Rule melded both traditions by placing the Sisters under jurisdiction of the provincial and the master general.²⁶ They were not a lay congregation, as members of the Third Order would be, but instead part of the Dominican Order. They identified as Second Order nuns, accountable ultimately to the master general—not the local bishops.

Despite this identification with the Second Order and all the privileges involved, some male members of the Dominican order saw the Sisters as members of the Third Order. Rev. John Hill from Cincinnati wrote to the bishop of London in 1824, describing the Sisters as “the Sisters of the Third Order [End Page 15] of Saint Dominic.”²⁷ While this phrase may have been used in passing, it had significant implications. As members of the Third Order, even though the Sisters had the privileges of the Second Order, the Sisters could be considered technically under the jurisdiction of the local bishop of Kentucky, then Bishop Benedict Flaget. There is no indication that Flaget actively tried to assert this authority until later, when the province began to relocate its center of power to Ohio. Until then, the Sisters operated as part of the American province.

The question of jurisdiction became even more complicated as the Dominican Province expanded north from its Kentucky origins into Ohio. The territory covered was too vast for one leader, so the Dominicans petitioned Rome that the St. Joseph Province be divided into two: one in Ohio and one in Kentucky. However, the vote was not unanimous (two friars did not vote for the division), so the vicar general ordered a compromise and reconciliation, demanding the “restoration of the single province, [under the provincial of St. Joseph’s province] and a Dominican bishop for Ohio.”²⁸ In the face of this expansion, the Sisters were placed under the authority of the commissary general, Edward Fenwick, then the bishop of Cincinnati, while their spiritual care was designated to the prior of St. Rose in Kentucky.²⁹ This division of labor resulted in a conflict when Raphael Muños became the Sisters’ director in the late 1820s.

The Muños Affair

In 1828, Fenwick appointed Fr. Raphael Muños to be prior of the St. Rose priory as well as the spiritual advisor to the Sisters. Hailing from Spain, Muños had responded to Fenwick’s call for missionaries, serving originally in the Ohio Diocese before going to Kentucky. Muños was a strict disciplinarian and wanted to reform the Kentucky friars and Sisters. Within the priory, the friars [End Page 16] disliked Muños, according to one historian, “because of his rigor and his lack of proficiency in the English language.”³⁰ His attitude toward reform caused much discontent for the Kentucky friars and Sisters.³¹

Muños did not support the Sisters as his predecessors had done. He was used to Sisters of the Second Order (enclosed nuns), which he did not consider the Sisters to be. Moreover, he did not believe the Sisters’ education efforts were as valid as the monastic activities of the contemplative nuns. According to Sister Margaret Hamilton’s “Chronicles,” Muños saw the Third Order Sisters as “endur[ing] the hardships of this country with so little results.”³² What began as a cultural misunderstanding turned into neglect. Bishop Fenwick described Muños’s attitude in an 1829 letter: “I have learned . . . that he [Muños] thinks it pertains to his office neither to look after them [the Sisters] himself, nor to commit the care of them to another, and hence it is that the Sisters are often unable to carry out the duties of religious, and are meanwhile burdened with great want.”³³

Muños was also upset by the women’s unstable financial situation, left by Reverend Miles, one of the Sisters’ first spiritual directors. During his time working with the Sisters, Miles had borrowed $2,000 for the Sisters so that they could expand their community. Although he was the original signatory for the loan, the financial obligation had been transferred to the Sisters. Indeed, Fenwick decided that it would be better if the Sisters assumed the financial burden so that Miles could focus on his pastoral duties, and not be jailed for debts: “I trust that Rev. Pius Miles . . . may be enabled to devote himself to his sacred duties without molestation from the creditors.”³⁴ Fenwick’s decision left the Sisters facing a massive debt with little help from the friars.

Rather than helping the convent, Muños hoped that the Sisters would have to sell off their land and return to their worldly homes, effectively disbanding the congregation.³⁵ Should he have succeeded, the Sisters would have lost their place, not only as members of the Dominican order but also as educators and activists within the community. While they could have joined other congregations in Kentucky, all their hard work as Dominicans would come to [End Page 17] naught. Should these women have decided not to join another congregation, they would have been placed back within lay society, losing any autonomy and influence they had gained as members of a religious community.

Despite Muños’s desire to possibly dissolve the Sisters’ convent, he did not have the authority to do so. That choice was under the jurisdiction of the province’s de facto leader, Bishop Fenwick. Fenwick decided to let the Sisters be. Yet, according to Dominican historian Mary Nona McGreal, Muños “believed that he was not bound to obey Fenwick in . . . disbanding the Sisters.”³⁶ Muños’s position was part of a larger challenge to Fenwick’s authority. For example, when Fenwick reassigned two friars from St. Rose’s priory, Muños did not allow them to leave. Fenwick was not amused. In a letter, the bishop wrote, “I find myself in great difficulty because I do not have Religious on whom I can rely regarding the affairs of the Order.”³⁷ Fenwick was also upset by how Muños ran the priory and convent, writing in 1829 that Muños “lacks prudence and discretion, and our Order in America cannot hope for much help from him.”³⁸

Faced with disbandment, the Sisters challenged Muños’s decision. Sister Hamilton’s “Chronicles” described the Sisters’ determination: “they knew it was God who had called them to the religious life, that Father Wilson had secured the approval of the Holy See, and as long as the community was faithful to the purpose for which it had been organized, it could not be disbanded without the consent of the community.”³⁹ The Sisters’ prioress, Mother Angela Sansbury, even wrote to the Dominican master general, then Pius Viviani, and stated “We will not agree to such a tragedy . . . Father Wilson secured the approval of the Holy See for us, and as long as the community is faithful to the purpose for which it was organized it cannot be disbanded without the consent of the same community.”⁴⁰ It was not just the leadership who protested Muños; the Sisters’ Annals, which documented important events in the Sisters’ history, recorded that “The entire Community refused to comply with the demands of Father Muños. As a penalty, the Prior deprived them of the privilege of Mass in their own Chapel.”⁴¹

The Sisters took a risk in presenting a united front to their director. Muños’s [End Page 18] tactics were an attempt to force the Sisters to submit; denying them Mass undermined their religious beliefs and vocation. Moreover, it presented a threat to their souls. In the face of these repercussions, the records do not state how the Sisters responded to these consequences. In similar cases, when women religious challenged the director or bishop, resulting in a restriction on receiving Mass, some sisters backed down and others continued to fight.⁴² However, there is no indication of whether that happened or not with Muños. Whatever the reason, the Sisters did not back down and continued to assert their agency and fight to determine their own future.

When challenging Muños, the Sisters turned to their allies, particularly Bishop Fenwick in Cincinnati, for support. Fenwick initially sided with Muños, at least in terms of property. While he never wanted to dissolve the congregation, he proposed that he, not Muños, be given the “full and free right to sell the monastery in which dwell the Sisters, and also the farm pertaining to it, together with two or more pieces of property. . . . so that the debt which burdens the Sisters may be liquidated.”⁴³ Fenwick’s stance on property asserted his authority over the wayward prior and the Dominicans in Kentucky, including the Sisters. Yet, the commissary general did not want to disband the community. In October 1829, Fenwick confided to Joachim Briz, then master general of the order, “it would be more advisable for the Sisters . . . to disperse their Community for a while and devote themselves to the various duties of my Diocese.”⁴⁴ However, as the Sisters refused to disband, Fenwick suggested that they be “transferred . . . to another place, or establish them on the . . . land near the church of Saint Joseph, in the State of Ohio, until some provision can be made for them.”⁴⁵ The Muños affair provided him with a reason to strongly encourage the Sisters to come to Ohio.

Fenwick recalled Muños in 1830, effectively ending the Muños affair. The matter seemed largely resolved, apart from the question of the debt, which the Sisters soon paid off.⁴⁶ After Muños left, the Sisters remained in Kentucky but soon expanded to Ohio. In 1830, Fenwick wrote to a member of the international order, “We have called four Dominican Sisters from Kentucky into the Diocese [End Page 19] of Ohio, giving them a mission.” Fenwick noted, however, that he would try to bring the other sisters in as well, citing the struggling Kentucky missions as well as the uneasy status the Sisters had with the “secular priests.”⁴⁷

Continuing Debates over Order and Jurisdiction

The possibility of relocating the Kentucky convent was not just a response to the Muños affair. Fenwick had wanted the Sisters to aid in his missionary work as early as 1824, when a French missionary from the Sisters of Mercy arrived. In 1825, he asked for the Sisters of Charity, formed by Elizabeth Seton, to come. However, he had to wait for the fledging Dominican Sisters.⁴⁸ The Sisters sent a delegation to Ohio in 1830 where they established a new house and school, St. Mary’s, in Somerset, Ohio. The house in Ohio became a separate institution with its own motherhouse and novitiate, but it maintained a connection to its Kentucky counterparts. Both the new house as well as the original in Kentucky were equally under the authority of the provincial and the master general. Yet the house also became “incorporated under the laws of the State of Ohio” through the organization St. Mary’s Female Literary Society.⁴⁹

Throughout their expansion to Ohio, the Sisters maintained a desire to be [End Page 20] part of the Second Order. Like their counterparts in Kentucky, the early vows for Ohio Sisters stated, “And whereas for want of proper enclosure I cannot at present make my solemn vows but only simple ones; my wish and intention is as soon as proper enclosure can be procured . . . to make the same solemn vows as the Nuns of St. Dominic and the religious men usually make.”⁵⁰ They also petitioned to wear habits of the Second Order.

The Sisters had multiple supporters who championed their calls to be considered members of the Second Order. In 1851, Robert White, the visitator general of the St. Joseph Province, wrote that “there resides in the Community a desire to fulfill all obligations of our sacred Constitutions in the manner observed by the Sisters of the Second Order, and to adopt the form of Profession used by the same as soon as the Holy See may think it advisable to allow such a change.”⁵¹ White went on to emphasize the rules the Sisters were to follow, including that of enclosure.⁵²

The struggle over identity continued into the 1850s. In a letter from August 1857, Whelan wrote to the Sisters of Ohio about some “regulations,” which had presumably worried the Sisters.⁵³ First on this list was the question of their unclear status as Second- or Third-Order nuns. Whelan stated that although he knew how much the Sisters wanted to take formal vows, becoming enclosed nuns, after much discussion between the master general and the council, the master general had decided “in the time in which we live and under present Circumstances the Convent of our Sisters of the Third Order are called to the cloistered life but . . . to [unknown word] active life.”⁵⁴ The tone of the letter was sympathetic but did little to alleviate the tensions between their strained identities, reaffirming the previous combination of the Second and Third Orders.

The need for clarification over the Sisters’ status as members of the Second or Third Order coincided with the rise of the local bishops in the Midwest as well as in the United States in general. After Fenwick’s death in 1832, the role of provincial and bishop was divided into two separate positions. The Sisters, particularly those in Ohio, were caught between two competing authorities, both of whom resided in their diocese. As members of the order, they owed [End Page 21] allegiance to the provincial. Yet, the local bishops were becoming more powerful, asserting their authority over women religious. The Sisters needed a clear identity as members of the Second Order in order to claim protection under the Realm of the Province and the International Order.

Jandel Decides the Question

The Sisters and Dominican friars continued to debate whether the Sisters were members of the Third or Second Order through the early 1860s. The debate became so extensive and politically fraught that the master general, then Alexandre Jandel, stepped in to settle the matter. When it came to the Third Order in Europe, Jandel was very sympathetic, supporting their various missionary endeavors. However, he believed that he was following Catholic Church law when he stated that the local convents of the Third Order, both in America and Europe, were not directly responsible for reporting to him. He identified these local, individual houses as lay congregations under the control of the local bishops.

Jandel tried to dissuade the Third Order Sisters from undermining the authority of the local bishops, emphasizing the autonomy of the dioceses. However, Jandel was not against the religious houses banding together into larger (possibly papal) congregations. A letter from him, most likely from the 1860s, explained his position:

As soon as your institute is no longer a simple and exclusively diocesan work but sees itself constituted regularly under the immediate dependence of the Holy See, it will no longer be in the name nor in the hands of the local Bishop that professions are made, but rather in the name and in the hands of the Sister Superior General of the entire Congregation. When these ceremonies are made in the hands of a local Superior, she will always be acting as delegate of the Superior General, principal agent of regular authority emanating from the Apostolic See.⁵⁵

The Sisters in Europe also rebelled against Jandel’s decision to place them under the control of the local clergy. Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier’s biography of the master general describes various instances when women of the Third Order in England, Spain, France, and Italy challenged the diocesan model and attempted [End Page 22] to place themselves firmly under the leadership of Jandel. Yet, despite his verbal support for these local communities, Jandel did not aggressively promote his authority over the local houses in Europe or America.⁵⁶

In 1864, the Sisters in the United States received a letter from Jandel stating that they were no longer under the domain of the Dominican master general. Rather than being nuns of the Second Order, he declared that the American Sisters were members of the Third Order. As such, he clarified that their care and oversight was under the jurisdiction of the local bishops.⁵⁷ Jandel’s decision shocked the Sisters; however it fit into his overarching agenda as master general. Jandel’s views on the Third Order and its responsibility to the diocese led him to place the American Sisters under the jurisdiction of the nineteenth-century bishops.⁵⁸

Jandel’s decision reflected diocesan consolidation within mid-nineteenth-century Catholicism. His decree was preceded by the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore’s own emphasis on the diocesan congregation two years earlier as the ideal model of governance of women’s religious congregations. The Second Plenary Council emphasized the local bishops’ authority over the religious congregations within the diocese. For women’s congregations like the Dominicans, this decree limited the authority of the provincial over the Sisters.⁵⁹ Jandel’s decision over the state of the Dominican Sisters was thus part of a larger trend within the American environment, placing women religious firmly within the diocese.

The Sisters Respond

In response to Jandel’s dictum, the Sisters presented a united front. The Annals of St. Mary’s in Somerset, Ohio, held records indicating that in November 1864 they, along with St. Catharine’s Kentucky, St. Mary’s Memphis, and St. Cecilia’s Nashville “met, and petitioned Most Rev. A. V. Jandel to allow them their former privileges or to receive them as members of the Second Order.”⁶⁰ They wrote a letter in which they emphasized that they were “ready and willing at any time to comply with your wishes in our regard, either to become members [End Page 23] of the Second Order . . . or remain that of the Third Order.”⁶¹ They presented a case for reinstating them under the Dominican Rule, citing their close relationship with the friars, their history within the United States, and prior practice.⁶² The mother superiors of these groups petitioned the master general to place them “back under the jurisdiction of the American Provincial.”⁶³

Historians have traditionally interpreted the Sisters’ response to the master general’s decision as a fear that they would no longer be part of the Order of St. Dominic. It is true that the Sisters were terrified of losing their status. In their letter to Jandel, the Sisters demanded that the only authority over them should be “our Order only and to which alone we have ever felt ourselves bound to look for guidance in all matters both spiritual and temporal.”⁶⁴ However, their place within the Dominican order was not their only concern.

In many ways, the Sisters’ response reflected their trepidation over being under the leadership of the local bishops. In their petition to the master general, the Sisters worried that as local congregations they would be subject to regulations and abuses of power, including “excommunication, suspension, or interdiction, or to exercise in any manner whatever any power or jurisdiction over us or that which belongs to us, etc.”⁶⁵ The last phrase, “over us or that which belongs to us,” is particularly telling; the Sisters were worried that the local bishops would seize their property. The Sisters believed that they needed the defense of the order: “we most fervently desire your protection, and now most earnestly supplicate admission back under the jurisdiction of the Rev. Provincial of the Order of the Preaching friars and the guidance of our own Rev. Fathers.”⁶⁶ The provincial and the master general provided a means of support as well as a shield against the consolidating Catholic bishops. To be designated to the ranks of the Third Order, and to become a diocesan community, placed the Sisters in a precarious situation.

The Sisters’ call to be “back under the jurisdiction of the Rev. Provincial” both transgressed and affirmed traditional gender roles for women religious. The Sisters challenged the authority of the male leader—not just the local bishop but a master general. They demanded that Jandel respect their request to be members of the province. This request defied the traditional hierarchy of the Catholic [End Page 24] Church while emphasizing female subordination to their male superiors both within the religious communities and the diocese. The Sisters were not demanding to be equals or independent; they simply wanted a say in their governance.

Despite the Sisters’ pleas, Jandel did not reinstate them under the auspices of the Dominican order. To the Sisters he wrote, “I was pained at the thought of being obliged to refuse your desires so ardently expressed. But in truth I have no option in the matter of your jurisdiction but to obey the laws like yourselves. . . . You perceive, therefore, that if I refuse your request, it is simply because I have no power to grant it.”⁶⁷ His role was not to enact legislation but to enforce it. To him, the Original Constitution’s stance on the Third Order held sway over mitigating circumstances.

Conclusion

Throughout their early years, the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine in Kentucky and Ohio remained largely betwixt and between the Second and Third Orders, forcing them into an uncomfortable status within the Dominican community. As members of the Second Order, they would have been enclosed nuns under the authority of the master general; as part of the Third Order, they would have been local diocesan communities. As the order began to institutionalize, various friars attempted to define the Sisters’ position but continued to emphasize a mixed identity, which owed its allegiance to the provincial leader and then to the master general. It was only in 1864, with Master General Jandel’s proclamation, that their status became clear. They were members of the Third Order under the authority of the local bishops. The Sisters’ worst fears had come to life as they felt they had lost the protection of the Dominican order.

In responding to Muños, Jandel, and other members of the clergy, the Sisters continued to assert their agency in determining their fate and place within the Catholic community. They demanded respect from their male superiors, asserting their positions within the Dominican order. Their actions transgressed gendered roles that emphasized women’s subordination to the male hierarchy. Yet, they ultimately upheld gendered norms, adhering to and obeying the decisions of the male clergy. Their continuing advocacy placed them firmly within the history of Catholic women religious of the nineteenth century. [End Page 25]