ST. LOUIS — The School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) are reconfiguring and forming a new province in North America. The Sisters of the current provinces in St. Louis, Dallas, Milwaukee and Mankato, Minn., are uniting next year as a new province. The inauguration day is June 12, 2011, on the day Christians celebrate the feast of Pentecost.
Five SSND Sisters currently serve or are retired in the Diocese of Davenport.
School Sisters of Notre Dame of the Central Pacific Province is the name of the new unit. Central Pacific Province is a reference to the central U.S. geographic location of the current campuses, the SSND ministries in the western and Pacific coast areas, and the Sisters in Japan and Guam.
More than 1,200 Sisters will be united in this new province of SSND.
The Sisters coming together in this new province have been in talks about this collaboration and reconfiguring since November 2005.
The congregation was founded in Bavaria in 1833, with its original mission to educate and minister among poor women and children.
School Sisters have been in the United States since 1847 and the Davenport Diocese since 1860.
