{"id":268449,"date":"2026-06-16T13:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268449\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T13:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:53:10","slug":"daughters-of-charity-leaving-diocese-of-brooklyn-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268449\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughters of Charity Leaving Diocese of Brooklyn Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"At age 90, Sister Margaret Tuley (left) is a Eucharistic Minister at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Bayside and volunteers her time answering the phone in the rectory. She said that she and three other sisters \u2014 (from left) Donna Marie Smith, Nora Gatto, and Patricia Evanick \u2014 are sad to be leaving. A fifth, Sister Michele Loisel (right), will remain in New York City. (Photos: Courtesy of the Daughters of Charity)<\/p>\n

BAYSIDE \u2014\u00a0After more than two centuries serving Brooklyn, the\u00a0Daughters\u00a0of Charity will soon leave the diocese to serve in other parts of the United States, leaders\u00a0of the order recently announced.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The last four remaining sisters in the diocese\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Donna Marie Smith, Nora Gatto, Patricia\u00a0Evanick,\u00a0and Margaret Tuley\u00a0\u2014\u00a0who live at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament\u00a0Church in Bayside, will disperse and move\u00a0on\u00a0to\u00a0their new duties\u00a0by the end of summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The four sisters are the last of their community still serving in the diocese,\u00a0after\u00a0all\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0other members of the\u00a0religious order left\u00a0in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED: Daughters of Charity \u2013 Sisters Moving Out of Brooklyn, But Will Keep a Diocesan Presence<\/a><\/p>\n

Sister Michelle Loisel, who is the religious order\u2019s Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) representative to the United Nations, where she works on issues like eradicating poverty in underdeveloped nations\u00a0and stopping human trafficking,\u00a0resides\u00a0in Manhattan and\u00a0will remain\u00a0there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament\u00a0held\u00a0a special Mass on\u00a0June 7\u00a0to say goodbye to the\u00a0Daughters\u00a0of Charity<\/a>\u00a0and thank the sisters for\u00a0their\u00a0service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0hard because knowing\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0the last daughters here is not easy,\u201d said Sister Donna, the assistant principal of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Academy. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0also hard for each one of us to leave our ministries\u00a0because\u00a0we put our heart and soul into everything we do.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The Daughters of Charity served their country during the Spanish-American War in 1898 by caring for injured soldiers at a military hospital on Long Island.<\/p>\n

The Daughters of Charity\u00a0first arrived in Brooklyn in 1831\u00a0from Emmitsburg, Maryland,\u00a0to\u00a0teach at\u00a0St.\u00a0Mary\u2019s\u00a0Asylum and\u00a0School in\u00a0what is now\u00a0Downtown Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time,\u00a0which predated the founding of the Diocese of Brooklyn by 22 years,\u00a0they were known as the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph;\u00a0the name was changed to Daughters of Charity in 1850.<\/p>\n

The sisters taught at many schools in Brooklyn,\u00a0including Cathedral Free School, St. Mary\u2019s Institute, St. Paul\u2019s Industrial School, and St. Philomena\u2019s Academy.<\/p>\n

They were called away from the diocese\u00a0to work at a military hospital in Montauk, Long Island,\u00a0during the Spanish-American War in 1898.\u00a0In the following years, they served in various parts of the nation as nurses and teachers.<\/p>\n

The sisters returned to the diocese in 1933 to direct the School of Nursing at St. Mary\u2019s Hospital in Bedford-Stuyvesant. That same year, the sisters began an affiliation with\u00a0the\u00a0Vincentian Fathers and Brothers at St. John\u2019s University<\/a> to teach at the School of Nursing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1952, the sisters\u00a0opened the DePaul House of Studies\u00a0at St. John\u2019s University,\u00a0and over the next 20 years, sisters from around\u00a0the world\u00a0earned their degrees\u00a0there.\u00a0The\u00a0house\u00a0was open until\u00a01972.<\/p>\n

By the early 1970s, the sisters\u00a0were working with the\u00a0Vincentians\u00a0at St. John the Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant\u00a0and serving at other churches\u00a0and schools, including\u00a0Holy Rosary School in Bedford-Stuyvesant and\u00a0St. Anthony-St. Alphonsus Parish in Greenpoint.<\/p>\n

In addition, the sisters\u00a0helped\u00a0establish\u00a0St. John\u2019s Bread and Life<\/a>, the food pantry and social service\u00a0assistance\u00a0center,\u00a0worked with Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens\u00a0on various service projects,\u00a0and\u00a0taught\u00a0at New Horizons, an adult education program.<\/p>\n

The sisters were constantly busy, Sister Patricia recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sister Patricia said the sisters ran religious education programs, New Horizons, adult education,\u00a0a nursing\u00a0students\u2019\u00a0assistance\u00a0program, and reading and writing classes for people whose formal education\u00a0had ended\u00a0after third grade.<\/p>\n

Since 1984, the sisters have been\u00a0living and\u00a0serving\u00a0at\u00a0Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament\u00a0in a variety of roles, including religious education, visiting the sick, and serving as\u00a0Eucharistic\u00a0Ministers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be\u00a0very hard to leave,\u201d Sister Donna said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sister Teresa George, the\u00a0provincial\u00a0superior of the\u00a0Daughters\u00a0of Charity Province\u00a0of St. Louise\u00a0(the province to which the sisters belong),\u00a0said she understands that\u00a0saying goodbye will be difficult.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we always do when grappling with difficult decisions, we look to the guidance of our founder, St. Vincent De Paul,\u201d she said,\u00a0quoting his famous saying, \u201cI belong neither here nor there, but wherever God wants me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At age 90, Sister Margaret Tuley (left) is a Eucharistic Minister at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-268449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}