Memphis Poor Clares Suppressed

Status
Not open for further replies.
Cloisters

Cloisters

Well-known member
I just received the Cincinnati Poor Clares’ newsletter where they tell of the Memphis monastery closing. There were four nuns left, and they couldn’t maintain the property. Two of the nuns chose to join Cincinnati. One of these nuns, however, is residing at the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur assisted living facility in Cincy.

Memphis website: http://memphispoorclares.org/index.html

Cincinnati website: http://www.poorclarescincinnati.org/

Blessings,
Mrs Cloisters OP
Lay Dominican
http://cloisters.tripod.com/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/charity/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/holyangels/id9.html/
 
Cloisters said:
There were four nuns left, and they couldn’t maintain the property.
Click to expand...
This seems to be a growing problem. Where I live there are two convents that recently had to close because the nuns were too few and too old to manage them any longer. Pretty much every issue of the Catholic Register (Canadian edition) has similar stories. It saddens me.
 
This seems odd given that Memphis is such a Catholic hotbed nowadays. Maybe the Poor Clares need better marketing.

I did notice that my own local hometown chapter of Poor Clares (Collettines, across the street from my high school) seems to have a lot of sisters who look Filipino. According to their website they have 17 sisters. They could be from within the USA already though, not necessarily brought from the Philippines.

There is a second Poor Clare shrine in that area that has a beautiful and fairly well attended shrine church in an otherwise empty part of the city (nothing there but some offices at this point) and I hope it manages to persist, as among other things it is the convent where Mother Angelica first joined before she was later transferred to Canton and then went on to Alabama. If any sort of sainthood cause were to open for her, I’m sure this shrine could capitalize on it. Their website doesn’t say how many sisters they have. I know there are some because they were singing in the cloister when I last went to Mass there.
 
Last edited:
Cardinals and other Vatican functionaries tend to have “titular sees”–suppressed diocese with no current population.
 
Because a lot of the traveling preachers and devotional movement people I know are always going down there for big gatherings and conferences. It hosted one last year. I was a little weirded out that it was Memphis as I don’t expect it to have lots of Catholics but I’m constantly hearing about Memphis this and Memphis that.
 
Thanks. The reason I ask is because I am in Memphis and wondering what I am missing 😄

I went to a conference a few years ago that Bishop Barron (then Fr Barron) spoke at. We had some negative news lately when our prior bishop was removed by the Vatican.
 
Some years back, went to see Fr. Mitch Pacwa preach a mission. Stayed at a nearby house run by Benedictine Sisters. Plain clothes. Trendy labyrinth. “National Catholic Reporter” (dissident publication) in the library. Why not take a job as a government social worker? Pay and bennies are far better.

Point of hope: Dominican Daughters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. Loyal to the Magisterium. Habit-wearing. Teachers. Joy-filled hearts. Evangelists.

1997 - Founded by four sisters.
2019 - Over 140 Sisters and growing, average age 32.

Praise God in Heaven!
 
The Poor Clares monasteries I’ve seen in USA aren’t anything like the Benedictines you describe. If you look at the websites for them, the sisters wear habits, for one thing.
They also engage in a lot of traditional practices such as Adoration.
Mother Angelica was a Poor Clare.

There’s more to it than whether some order is traditional and wears habits.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top