Nuns on the run from Episcopal Church

Friday, 26th June 2009
By George Conger

The American branch of the Anglican women’s religious order, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor, has announced that all but one of its members have quit the Episcopal Church and on Sept 3 will be received into the Roman Catholic by the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore.

Founded in 1851 in London, the mother house of the English order is located in Oxford. However in the 19th century the order had over 400 members spread across houses in India, South Africa, Scotland and the United States. In 1872 the Sisters were invited by the rector of Mount Calvary Episcopal Church in Baltimore to open a house in Catonsville, Maryland to work with the poor.

According to its website, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor are a “traditional religious community, living under the evangelical vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.” Speaking to the Living Church magazine, the superior of the order Mother Christina said the 12 sisters in the US had come to believe that this discipline was not welcome in the Episcopal Church. the rest