After 146 Years, a Brooklyn Convent Is Closing
Behind the red-brick walls encircling the Convent of Mercy in Brooklyn, generations of nuns have taught the illiterate, sheltered the homeless and raised orphans. They are known as the Walking Sisters, ministering in the community as well as inside their convent.
Now, after 146 years, it is time for the small band of sisters, most of them retired, to walk away from the convent. The leadership of their order, the Sisters of Mercy, decided to shutter the place and scatter the sisters to other homes and nursing facilities after realizing it would cost more than $20 million to fix serious structural and accessibility problems in the fortresslike building on Willoughby Avenue in Clinton Hill.
This has been a season of heartbreak and anger for these women, who thought the motherhouse would be their last home and the sisters their constant companions. Now they, the rescuers of lost children, feel like orphans themselves.
“It kind of hurts in a lot of ways,” said Sister Francene Horan, who came to the motherhouse in 1950 to teach kindergarten. “A building is one thing. This is a home, the place you knew would give you a place to stay. It’s like saying your parents died and you don’t have a home anymore.”
In a ritual that was unthinkable a year ago, they gather regularly as their numbers dwindle to bid goodbye to one another, and to an entire way of life — the busy convent and its shared days of work, prayer and laughter.
The Sisters of Mercy, known as the Walking Sisters because working outside the convent was unusual for nuns in the 19th century, have been in Brooklyn since 1855, when five young nuns from Manhattan answered Bishop John Loughlin’s call to work with the poor and sick. They went from the ferry at Fulton Landing to the nine-room convent of St. James parish on Jay Street, where they lived and worked.
Legend has it that five boys were left in their care one day, not an uncommon occurrence during a time when illness often claimed the lives of work-weary immigrant parents. As the nuns’ work grew along with their reputation, they moved in 1862 to the much larger quarters of their present convent, in what was then a solidly Irish neighborhood.
Thousands of children came to live with the sisters over the decades. Rather than fend for themselves as ragamuffins, they lived in tidy dormitories, supervised by two nuns and a helper. In the chapel, an ornate sanctuary of stained glass and gleaming marble, the youngest had a place of honor at the front, sitting in pews that were smaller than the rest.
Mary Margaret McMurray was almost 6 years old when she and her sister arrived at the orphanage after their parents died of influenza in 1917. She stayed until she graduated from high school and took a job as a secretary at an insurance company.
“The convent was so big,” said Ms. McMurray, now 97 and living in Queens with her daughter, herself a Sister of Mercy. “And there were so many children there. I had a lot of company. But it was very pleasant.”
The nuns taught her a lot, she said, and not all the lessons were found in books. “They taught me to be a positive person,” she said. “And of course, religion, too.”
Changes in social welfare policies in the 1970s led the order to open group homes, encourage adoption or foster care, and expand services to the homeless and developmentally disabled. Fewer women were entering the order, while the remaining sisters grew older. The convent became their retirement home, including one floor devoted to the infirm. The neighborhood around them changed, too, attracting Latino, black and Hasidic families.
The order’s leadership realized in the last few years that the old building presented too many obstacles for older women. An engineering study in February recommended extensive exterior renovations, removal of asbestos and rebuilding the foundation. Sister Christine McCann, the president for the region that includes the convent, said the millions of dollars needed for repairs could be better used to finance social and educational work by the order, which still has about 4,000 nuns in the United States.
Selling the convent could help raise even more money for their mission, Sister McCann said, but no decision has been reached. Though the building is not a landmark — giving wide leeway for any new owners to develop or demolish the property — some nuns said they hoped they could still return to the chapel on special occasions.
Since September, with the help of two sisters with nursing backgrounds, the 38 nuns who lived at the convent have been presented with options for new homes — from apartments in assisted-living centers to nursing homes run by religious orders.
Sister McCann knows the news was hard to break, and understands the anger that greeted it.
“It’s difficult when any community has to make these decisions that affect the lives of so many people,” she said. “But I’m awed by the response of the sisters who live here. They have been honest with their feelings, fine one minute and not so fine the next. But their faith is constant. To live as a Sister of Mercy is to take the steps they take with courage.”
About a dozen remain. The ones with the greatest needs were moved first, leaving the infirmary floor deserted and quiet. The television set is cold and the card tables sit unused, with boxes of games like Clue and Yahtzee stacked high.
On a recent afternoon, the dining room was filled with sisters and their visitors, preparing for another departure. Sister Mary Isabel Sullivan recalled moving into the convent in 1967, when it still housed young nuns in college and others teaching at the grammar school across the street. Soon after, she said, much changed, starting with new career choices for sisters in addition to teaching and child care.
“People could choose their residence, too,” she said. “We became smaller.”
She has stayed, by choice, enjoying the company of relative newcomers like Sister Mary Joseph Lorigan, who banters with her like a seasoned vaudevillian. They recalled the days when the Walking Sisters were a visible presence in the neighborhood, easily identified by their habits — or demeanor.
“We dress like any other woman now,” Sister Mary Joseph said. “But every now and then you see someone who asks you, ‘Are you a sister?’ ”
Sister Mary Isabel told how, years ago, she and another sister were driving to a florist when they spotted a panhandler hobbling up to the car. She was ready to give him money. But the panhandler stopped in his tracks once he saw the veil she wore.
“He said: ‘I’m lying. I’m a Catholic. I can walk!’ ” she recalled. “He just walked away from our car.”
By midafternoon, the remaining nuns and their guests had gathered in a circle to say goodbye to Sister Marguerite Relihan, who was moving the next day to Hartsdale, in Westchester County. The mood was subdued, with a gentle sadness in the air. They prayed for one another, and for those outside their convent who had neither home nor hope. At the end, Sister McCann dabbed holy water on Sister Marguerite’s forehead, whispered into her ear and hugged her.
“Dwell secure in his love in your new home,” the group intoned.
And out of the gathering, a voice arose.
“Marguerite!” someone said with a chuckle. “Hold on to my room until I get there.”
