Grey Nuns

The Sisters worked as nurses and teachers in a number of Indian Residential Schools, as the preferred missionary partners of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate,[8]^: 30 who were not allowed to teach girls.[8]^: 96 The Oblates paid parents to allow their children to attend boarding schools. At the schools, they participated in the effort to remove children from their traditional Indigenous ways of life, in order to "civilize" them.[8]^: 92

The main goal of the Oblates and the Grey Nuns was to provide a Catholic education (in competition with schools operated by Anglicans) and to give limited secular education. These early mission boarding schools never recruited more than a small percentage of the number of school-aged children in the region.[8]^: 96 Though often at odds, the Canadian government and the various religious organizations operating residential schools agreed that Indigenous cultural practices had to be suppressed.[8]^: 627

Students at the schools were subjected to physical and Sexual abuse;[9]^{: 104–107} insufficient food;[9]^: 88–89 and being forbidden to speak their native languages or engage in their cultural practices.[9]^: 4–6 This treatment has been deemed cultural genocide by the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.[9]^: 8

The Sisters worked at one of the most notorious schools, St. Anne's Indian Residential School (located in Fort Albany, Ontario), where a homemade electric chair was reportedly used on the children for the amusement of the staff, among other severe abuses. Survivor testimony later sparked a long-running OPP investigation; two nuns were eventually convicted of assault for their actions at St Anne's.[10] The Sisters also worked at the Holy Angels Residential School in Fort Chipewyan. The Mikisew Cree First Nation, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Fort Chipewyan Métis Community have hired archaeologists from the University of Alberta to search the grounds of the school for unmarked graves reported by former students. The search began in March 2022.[11]^: 14[12]

Other residential schools where the sisters worked include Île-à-la-Crosse Residential School,[8]^: 96 Lac la Biche (Notre Dame des Victoires) Residential School,[8]^: 95 St. Albert (Youville) Residential School,[8]^: 95 Qu'Appelle Indian Residential School,[8]^: ix St. Boniface Residential School,[8]^: 690 Assiniboia Indian Residential School,[13]^: 241 Shubenacadie Indian Residential School,[8]^: 241 Fort Providence Residential School,[8]^: 707 Blue Quills Residential School,[14]^: 90 the residence at Fort Smith,[15]^: 50 Fort Resolution Indian Residential School,[15]^: 149 and Chesterfield Inlet (Turquetil Hall) Residential School.[14]^: 439

The Sisters and the Oblates objected to the characterization of their actions during the IRSSA process, stating that they felt many students had positive experiences and that some of their members had been falsely accused.[16]^: 168

As of 2018, the Sisters had not turned over several thousand photos and records which they had promised to return to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.[17] As of 2021, the Catholic Church as a whole had not issued a formal apology for its role in the residential school system, although some dioceses and orders had issued their own apologies.[18]

The congregation was founded by Marie-Michel-Archange Thuot (Mother Thuot). She joined the Grey nuns in 1803. She served in the infirmary and pharmacy, and later became mistress of novices. In 1840, Thuot and three other sisters left Montreal to establish a community in the rural farming community of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec,[22] and soon founded the Hotel-Dieu for their health care ministry. As a way to raise funds to support themselves and their ministry, they also took in female pensionnaires.[23]

In response to increased industrialization of the area, in 1864 they founded the workhouse of Saint Geneviève to " procure work for the poor women when they are unable to find any on the outside."[20] The workhouse produced woollen fabric and soap, and provided employment for ten women, fifteen girls, one man, and three boys. They became a separate pontifical congregation in 1896.

In 1888 the sisters founded the first hospital in Lewiston, Maine, called variously "the Sisters' Hospital", "the French Hospital", or "the Catholic Hospital".[24] In 1902 the Sisters moved to a larger building that came to be called L'Hopital Generale Ste. Marie - St. Mary's General Hospital. St. Mary's developed into Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center.

Koessler Administration Building at D'Youville College

The only American congregation of Grey Nuns, the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart branched off from the Ottawa congregation in 1921, to establish an independent English-speaking congregation to minister in the United States.[25] They founded D'Youville College in Buffalo, New York. In 1966, the mother house moved to Yardley, Pennsylvania. The sisters serve in a variety of ministries in the East Coast states New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts as well as in Georgia and Alaska.

• the Sisters of Charity of the Hôtel-Dieu of Nicolet (1886), branched off from Saint-Hyacinthe, united with Montreal (1941)
• the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa (1845) formerly the Grey Nuns of the Cross
  • the Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (1926), branched off from Ottawa
• the Sisters of Charity of Quebec (1849)

They once operated a number of major hospitals in Canada; as provincial governments and church, authorities moved to standardize both ownership and operation of hospitals, many of these hospitals passed into the hands of Church corporations (or, in some cases, governmental organizations) and the Grey Nuns changed focus. The Grey Nuns' Hospital building built in 1765 in Montreal was designated a national Historic Site of Canada in 1973 to commemorate the Grey Nuns.[28] In 2011, Grey Nuns Motherhouse, the former motherhouse of the Grey Nuns in Montreal, now part of Concordia University, was also designated a National Historic Site.[29]

They now operate shelters for battered women (with and without children), shelters for women in need, clothing and food dispensaries, centres for the disabled, and some health care facilities. St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg is still owned by the Grey Nuns; hospitals previously owned, operated, or enlarged by the institute include the former Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary,[30] St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon,[31] and the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton.[32] Many of these health care institutions were founded by missionary nuns sent out from convents in Quebec and Ontario.[32]

Grey Nuns may work with the incarcerated.[27] Some chapters are also dedicated to peace and justice; at least one chapter, the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, has declared its properties a nuclear-free zone.[33]