Beatified Madame

Aristocrats among the 123,304 U. S. Roman Catholic nuns are those who belong to the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Called "Mothers" and "Madames," they run many a swank day and boarding school, teach French and other polite subjects to good little Protestants as well as Catholic girls. Their order was founded in 1800 by Madeleine Sophie Barat, who was canonized by her Church in 1925. To qualify as a Madame, a girl of respectable parentage and unblemished reputation must take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, study and teach for five or six years, then undergo a second six-month period of probation, finally becomes a professed religious by taking a vow of stability which attaches the nun irrevocably to the Society and vice versa. The Madames wear black, with a bonnet-like headdress framing the face in stiff white ruching. Semi-cloistered, they invariably live in large and comfortable convents, give a cup of tea to visiting bishops, Jesuits, papas and mammas, except during Lent.

Last week many a Madame of the Sacred Heart felt piously proud. In Vatican City the Congregation of Sacred Rites met before Pope Pius XI, voted to beatify Mother Philippine Duchesne, founder of the U. S. branch of the Order. Now to be titled "Blessed," this pioneer Madame thus passed the second milestone on the road to sainthood, which she will eventually attain if two miracles are henceforth performed in response to prayers addressed through her.

Philippine Rose Duchesne was born in Grenoble, France, in 1769. Defying her parents, she entered a Visitation convent at 18, left it during the Revolution, later tried to run a little sisterhood of her own. Finally she joined Mme Barat's new order. In 1818 Mother Barat sent her to the U. S. with four companions. Of the trip she said: "There is not much fun in it unless you do it for God." Arrived in New Orleans, she soon made a 40-day trip to St. Louis where the local Bishop welcomed her to his "palace," a barn, and his "cathedral," a shanty in which the prelate doubled as priest and choir. Mother Duchesne founded her first convent at St. Charles, Mo., in 1821, built schools, evangelized the Potawatomi Indians. In all she founded six houses before she died in 1852 in St. Charles.

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