The Scalabrinian Missionaries
Scalabrinian Missionary Sisters
Scalabrinian Secular Missionary Women
The Scalabrinian Missionaries
The Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, also known as Scalabrinians, is an international community of religious
brothers and priests, founded in Piacenza (Italy)
in 1887 by blessed John Baptist Scalabrini. The Congregation has been called to
announce the good News of Christ to migrants and refugees, especially those who
require a specific pastoral care. Scalabrinians fulfill their mission by sharing the same life and the very
experience of migration. By their practice of religious vows and by their
community living, they contribute with migrants to the growth of the Church
which, in its earthly pilgrimage, associates itself particularly with the
poorest and most abandoned classes of people. With their apostolic activities,
the Missionaries of St. Charles meet the challenge of healing migration's
causes and evil effects. They help discover the plan God carries out in all
migration movements, even when determined by injustices, so that the encounter
of peoples and cultures, enriched by the gift of the Spirit on Pentecost, is
transformed into communion. Migrants’ peculiar traits remind Scalabrinian missionaries and the local churches of the
fellowship of Pentecost, where the Spirit brings harmony among all differences
and where love shows itself to be genuine by accepting "the other." The
Scalabrinian Congregation cares for migrants and
refugees in a variety of ways socially, culturally and spiritually. Its
missionaries are present in 24 nations of Asia, Australia,
Africa, Europe and the Americas.
They are in charge of shelter homes for refugees or migrants in transit or
deported aliens, seamen’s centers, villages for
elderly migrants, and centers for migration studies. They
publish newspaper and magazines for migrants and conduct radio and television
programs for them. They run formation houses for religious and lay people, or
are members of migration committees of Bishops’ Conferences. Many of them
are engaged in preaching missions to migrant communities, teaching, or running
multicultural parishes and ethnic missions.
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General Administration of the Missionaries of St. Charles - Scalabrinians
Scalabrinian
Missionary Sisters
The Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo - Scalabrinians was founded by blessed John Baptist
Scalabrini, in Piacenza (Italy), on 25 October 1895. It has
as co-founders the two brothers, Father Joseph and Mother Assunta
Marchetti. Its specific aim is that of evangelical and missionary service of
migrants, with preference for the poorest and neediest. The Congregation spread
first in Brazil, then in
Europe starting in 1936, in
North America starting in 1941, and in recent decades, in other countries of
Latin America, Asia and Africa. Today it is
present in twenty countries and has 814 Sisters and 159 communities. Scalabrinian Sisters live their option of life for Jesus
Christ according to their specific charism, practice
community life as a vital element of their religious consecration, and
strengthen fidelity to their vocation through prayer, meditation on the Word of
God, and eucharistic celebration - sources of
communion with God and their brothers and sisters, especially neediest
migrants. In fidelity to John Baptist Scalabrini's
social-pastoral project and the example of their co-founders, the Sisters
perform their mission through catechesis, Christian education, pastoral care of
the sick, social pastoral action, study centers, centers for reception, guidance, listening and information,
and animation of the pastoral care of human mobility in Episcopal conferences,
national or regional, diocesan offices, parishes, non-governmental
organizations, people's movements, and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral
Care of Migrants. Faithful to the Scalabrinian charism and attentive to the challenges of people on the
move, the Scalabrinian Sister accept the Church's
proposal to serve alongside that portion of the human race that is on the move,
and to be "signs of God's tender love for the human race, and special
witnesses to the mystery of the Church, Virgin, Bride and Mother" (Vita Consecrata, 57), in keeping with the words of the Gospel:
"I was a stranger and you made me welcome" (Mt 25:35).
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General Administration of the Missionaries Sisters of St.
Charles - Scalabrinians
Via di Monte del Gallo 68 -
00165 Rome
Scalabrinian
Secular Missionary Women
Our Secular Institute was officially approved by the Church on Easter
Sunday 1990. It had started in Solothurn (Switzerland) in 1961 in contact with
migrants and Scalabrinian missionaries. We are called
to live our consecration to God in a secular form of life. It is the
consecration which makes us encounter the crucified and risen Lord, our
constant companion, in every situation and recognize Him especially in the most
uprooted and poorest of migrants. "I was a stranger and you made me
welcome" (Mt 25:35). It is Christ who invites us to take part with Him in
the suffering and hopes of migrants and to share with Him the harshest and most
unjust situations, marked by lack of unity and dispersion. Journeying on the
Exodus road with migrants of every nation, culture and religion, we draw our
strength and inspiration from blessed John Baptist Scalabrini's
spirituality of a total commitment and of a global vision of history. Contemplating
the plan of God for the world, he interpreted the upheaval of emigration as a
chance for the unification of the human family in Christ. The spirit of
communion that derives from the Trinity, source of our contemplation and our
fraternal communion, bonds all of us, who come from different nations, into
small international communities. These communities become living laboratories
where we experience new relationships and learn to value the richness of
diversity, every form of awareness and acceptance of the others, and a true
missionary spirit. As members of a Secular Institute, without any outward
distinguishing sign or without structures of our own, we cultivate a constant
dialogue with the world and perceive every situation as the ideal one in which,
through our vows, we make room for Christ who was poor, virgin and obedient,
the truly universal person. Within European and Brazilian multicultural
societies, we are committed to social, cultural and pastoral activities in
different fields, such as education, health and the arts. Our mission is to
span bridges between different cultures and to be like "salt and
leaven" in every-day living, announcing the Gospel and forming ourselves
together with migrants, young people and friends to the spirit of universal
communion, so that they, too, can become "salt and leaven" where they
live and work.
The Secular Institute of the Scalabrinian
Secular Missionary Women
Baselstr. 27 - 4500 Solothurn
(Switzerland)