All Saints Catholic School

Catherine McAuley was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1778. She used an inheritance from an Irish couple she had served for twenty years to build a large House of Mercy where she and other lay women would shelter homeless women, reach out to the sick and dying and educate poor girls. To give these efforts greater stability, Catherine and her co-workers founded a new religious congregation, taking vows as the first Sisters of Mercy on December, 12 1831. 

The order soon spread, and in 1843, Sister Frances Warde, a close friend of Catherine McAuley’s, and six companions crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite dangerous times, due to strong anti-Catholicism from the Know-Nothing society, the sisters went about their work in the mid-1800’s, traveling by stagecoach and establishing a presence in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, particularly through social services, healthcare, education and pastoral ministries.

The story of the Sisters in Maine began when Mother Frances Xavier Warde responded to a request from Bishop David W. Bacon, first bishop of the Portland Diocese: “Do you think you could divide your little community so as to take the Bangor mission in May? The Parish schools number about 400 children,” She answered by sending six sisters to Bangor, Maine from Manchester, New Hampshire. Under the direction of Mother Mary Gonzaga O’Brien, in August 1865, they opened a school. It would later become Saint John School, now part of All Saints Catholic School.