Jeanne Fontbonne

Career

In 1778 she entered a house of the Sisters of Saint Joseph which had just been established at Monistrol (Haute-Loire) by Bishop de Gallard of Le Puy. The following year she received the religious habit. At the outbreak of the French Revolution she and her community followed Bishop de Gallard in refusing to sign the Oath of Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

Forced to disperse her community, she remained until she was mobbed, and the convent taken possession of in the name of the Commune.

She returned to her father"s home, and was soon imprisoned at Saint-Didier. She restored the asylum at Monistrol, repurchased and reopened the former convent, and on 10 April 1812, the congregation received Government authorization.

During the remainder of her life she was busied in perfecting the affiliation of the scattered houses of the congregation, which had been formally decreed in 1828. She also established over two hundred new communities.

She sent a small group to the United States in 1836, and kept in constant correspondence with them.

Achievements

• On her election, six years later, as superior of the community, Mother Saint John, as she was now called, co-operated with the founder in all his undertakings, and aided in the establishment of a hospital (not a medical institution, but rather a place to receive the poor). In 1816 Mother Saint John was appointed Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, and summoned to Lyons to found a general motherhouse and novitiate, which she accomplished after many years.

Membership

Twelve years later (1807), Mother Saint John was called to Saint-Étienne as head of a small community of young girls and members of dispersed congregations, who at the suggestion of Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyon, were now established as a house of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.