A common mission and a shared legacy of service

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald

They’ve had ministries to educate youth and care for the poor in close proximity to one another since the 1800s in Lyon, France, and then in the United States, when both religious orders separately sent men and women to serve and educate the poor in many cities of the South, including Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Now, members of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart and the Congregation of St. Joseph are living under the same roof in Baton Rouge at the 21,470-square-foot Hundred Oaks Center formerly owned by the St. Joseph sisters. 

The Brothers of the Sacred Heart officially purchased the residence in June from the sisters. Approximately 50 religious and lay persons attended a prayer service June 9 during which Sacred Heart Brother Ray Hebert blessed the joint residence.  

Brother Ronald Hingle, provincial of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, said the purchase helps accommodate retired brothers’ and sisters’ needs.

“Acquiring the Hundred Oaks property allows us to better care for our brothers,” he said. “Partnering with the sisters and transferring ownership to the brothers helps both religious institutes address the needs and concerns of their aging members. 

“The ability to share the space with religious women, whose contribution to the church we appreciate and admire – as well as a congregation with whom we have had such a long relationship – just sweetened the deal. It seems like a win-win for both Institutes.”

Congregation of St. Joseph Sister Kathy Brazda, president and congregational leader, agreed.

“We are grateful to form a new and vibrant community with the brothers that gives our sisters’ residence a new and special purpose,” she said. 

Eileen Biehl, director of communications, grant-making and special projects for the Congregation of St. Joseph and who helps the brothers, said the partnership came as the sisters looked to the future for a good partner to take over their Baton Rouge building. 

 “We thought, ‘Who would align with us?’” she said. “The brothers purchased our building, and part of the agreement was that the brothers would move in.”

 St. Joseph sisters
The Congregation of St. Joseph began in LePuy, France, in 1650 when six women united to help others. Jesuit Father Jean Pierre Medaille gave them spiritual direction and the charism of living and working “to bring all people into union with God and each other.” 

The original Sisters of St. Joseph walked “block to block, to discover the needs of those they came to call their ‘dear neighbors,’” a history of the order stated.

The French Revolution forced the sisters to go into hiding in the late 1790s, but by 1807, a Cardinal in Lyon asked them to re-establish in Lyon to minister to the sick, the elderly and the young. They eventually opened hospitals, schools and orphanages. 

By 1826, 80 convents had been established in France. The sisters came to America in 1836 – first to St. Louis, and then others went to Bay St. Louis, New Orleans and other cities. In 1868, four sisters arrived in Baton Rouge to run an orphanage and establish St. Joseph Day School (now St. Joseph Academy) that moved in 1942 from downtown to its  current location near Catholic High School, run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart.

 Today, the Congregation of St. Joseph has approximately 500 vowed Catholic women and 500 lay associates who minister around the world. 

Brothers of the Sacred Heart
The Brothers, founded by Father André Coindre in 1821 in Lyon, France, came to the South, first to Mobile and then opened St. Stanislaus in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. By 1869, the brothers established St. Aloysius and have had a commitment to New Orleans and its people ever since, Brother Ronnie said. 

The Sacred Heart Brothers’ main ministry locally is operating Brother Martin High School in New Orleans – which opened in 1969 after a consolidation of St. Aloysius and Cor Jesu High (founded in 1954). A brother also ministers at Ozanam Inn.

By 1894, the brothers expanded to Baton Rouge and opened St. Vincent’s Academy, which evolved into the current Catholic High School, just a few blocks from the 

St. Joseph Sisters’ St. Joseph Academy. The two schools share classes, the band is coed and the schools’ two choruses work together.  

 There are currently approximately 850 brothers worldwide in 30 countries. The United States Province, headquartered in New Orleans, has 11 schools, administers a parish at St. Anne’s Mission on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and sponsors a home for street children on the island of Cebu in the Philippines.

How will they live together?
In addition to a shared history in Baton Rouge with brother-sister schools, the two congregations had schools in close proximity in New Orleans with Brother Martin High School and the now-closed St. Joseph Academy in Gentilly and also in Bay St. Louis, with St. Stanislaus for boys and the now-closed St. Joseph for girls (which since 1971 has operated as Our Lady Academy).

 “In the South is where we have the overlap,” Biehl said. 

To honor both orders’ traditions and spirituality at the shared Hundred Oaks property, the Sacred Heart Brothers and St. Joseph Sisters formed a Community Life Committee, Biehl and Brother Ronnie said.

“It was a really lovely thing,” Biehl said. “Everybody wanted to be more together than apart.”

It was decided that they will share morning and evening prayer, meals and daily Mass as well as common spaces such as the dining room, community room, activity room, workout room and conference room.  Each community’s feast days and member birthdays may also be celebrated together.

 At Hundred Oaks Center, there are 23 en suite rooms – 12 for the brothers (mostly moved from the Baird Street and Hearthstone communities, Brother Ronnie said) – and 11 for the sisters who have an average age of 80. The staff includes a full-time nurse, several certified nurse assistants (CNAs), a dietary staff, a full-time community life coordinator to plan activities, a religious director (Brother Francis David) and more.

“It’s assisted living with extra services as needed,” Biehl said. 

 Under the agreement, the sisters are allowed to remain for the next three years, at which time the two congregations will reassess.

 When the agreement between the two orders was announced in December 2022, “the sisters cheered in the chapel” when they were told that it was the Sacred Heart brothers who were going to buy the building, Biehl said. “When Brother Ronnie shared it with the brothers, it was equally a happy thing.”

“We were pleased that everybody felt this was going to move to a new and positive place,” Biehl said. “So far, it’s been going really well. They are finding ways to be in the building together ... forming a new way of being together celebrating Mass, prayer times, dining room times. It’s been a real wonderful thing to watch as it has unfolded.”

For more information on the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, visit www.brothersofsacredheart.org; for information on the Congregation of St. Joseph, visit www.csjoseph.org 

[email protected]