The Departures — 2018 and 2019, and Who Still Teaches

July 2018 and July 2019 — the Felicians and the Daughters of Divine Charity leave; the Franciscans remain

The Felicians’ leaving: In July 2018 the last two Felician Sisters left St. Adalbert’s: Sister Mary Anthony Kubat, who had served twenty-one years at the parish, and Sister Mary Catherine Ryzewicz, there since 2009, reassigned to the order’s Maryville Retreat Center in Holly, Michigan. Today’s Catholic’s account of June 20, 2018 states what their leaving ended: the order’s century-long presence in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the sisters having been at St. Adalbert’s since 1911. The Felicians’ South Bend course had run from Detroit to St. Adalbert’s in 1911 and from Livonia to Holy Family in 1954; the two strands withdrew together at the decade’s end, and no Felician classroom in the city is documented after 2018.

The Daughters’ leaving: A year later, at the end of July 2019, the last two Daughters of Divine Charity left Corpus Christi: Sister Carmella Chojnacki and Sister Paula Krizancic, nine years at the parish, in Today’s Catholic’s account of July 19, 2019, which states that their departure ended the order’s nearly one hundred years in the diocese. Before Corpus Christi the Daughters had been, in the paper’s words, “actively present in other South Bend-area parishes and schools, most notably Our Lady of Hungary, St. Mary of the Assumption and the former parish of St. Stephen” — the order’s South Bend map in one sentence, matching the parish record at each point. Their pastor, Father Rybicki, stated the sum: their departure “ends a more than century-old presence.”

Who still teaches: The orders’ withdrawal was a withdrawal of most, not all. The Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, whose motherhouse stands across the line in Mishawaka, remain in South Bend classrooms at the strongest documented points in the present web: four sisters teaching at St. Matthew Cathedral School under a sister of their own congregation as principal, in the diocesan paper’s 2022 account, and the three sisters documented at St. Anthony’s in 2011 standing as the most recent named account of that school’s staffing. The parish grade schools otherwise stand in November 2026 as lay-staffed schools under their pastors and the diocese — the web’s buildings and names intact, its staffing transformed.

Sources:

1. Today’s Catholic, June 20, 2018 — the last two Felicians’ departure from St. Adalbert’s, Sisters Mary Anthony Kubat and Mary Catherine Ryzewicz, and the end of the order’s century-long presence in the diocese.
2. Today’s Catholic, July 19, 2019 — the last two Daughters of Divine Charity leaving Corpus Christi, Sisters Carmella Chojnacki and Paula Krizancic, the order’s nearly one hundred years in the diocese, its other South Bend parishes and schools, and Father Rybicki’s statement.
3. Today’s Catholic (August 2022) and the feast of St. Clare account (August 2011) — the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration teaching at St. Matthew Cathedral School and St. Anthony de Padua School.