Sisters of Mercy

In 1831, Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland. A deeply religious woman of comfortable means, she sought to extend the Catholic Church’s ministries of healing and teaching to the poor, the sick, the uneducated and those who were ostracized by society. Since her death in 1841, Catherine’s congregation of women religious has become one of the largest ever established in the English-speaking world.

The healing ministries of the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Cincinnati (now part of the South Central Community based in Belmont, N.C.) and the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Dallas, Pa. (now part of the Mid-Atlantic Community based in Merion Station, Pa.), formally began at the end of the nineteenth century with the opening of hospitals in Hamilton, Ohio and Wilkes-Barre, Pa. in 1892 and 1898, respectively.

Through the years, the facilities under their sponsorship continued to grow in size, number, services and patients served. With this expansion, the sisters began to explore new governance and management structures, service consolidations and collaborations. The 1970s saw the beginnings of systems of health facilities.

In 1981, the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Cincinnati restructured their health ministry, naming it Mercy Health Care System. This affiliated group of facilities shared a coordinated central administration better able to carry out the church's mission in an increasingly competitive environment.

By 1986, the system was legally restructured into its current form and in 1988, its name became Mercy Health System. At about the same time, the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Dallas, Pa., formed a system and began to study collaborative structures, concluding that the future of their ministry lay in affiliating with a larger Catholic health system with compatible vision and values. By 1989, the co-sponsorship of the system by the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Communities of Cincinnati and Dallas was finalized, merging the two in a strong and synergistic healing ministry.

Return to Our Co-Sponsors & History.