Continuing our alternative to the USCCB Fortnight for Freedom,
I’d like to offer a story outline of Mother St Andrew Feltin, a
19th century missioner in the American West. Professor Anne M.
Butler profiled her courage in the NYT last month. One recurring
theme in the petty persecution of religious women is that they
spend inadequate amounts of time in the cloister. When it suited
them, 19th century American bishops had no such qualms. They
recruited and sent women religious into the mission territories
of the West. These women attracted postulants and they seeded
the West with small Catholic schools. Louise Feltin was born in
Alsace in 1830. At nineteen, she became a postulant for the
Sisters of Divine Providence, and realized her apostolate as a
teacher in Lorraine for many years afterward. Countryman Claude
Marie Dubuis was inspired with the missionary appeal of Texas.
The priest recruited heavily from his native France. Nicholas
Feltin was one of his protégés. Father Feltin in turn, inspired
his sister, wh