The Origins

During the nineteenth century the exodus of entire populations from Europe to the New World reached alarming proportions and the life conditions of migrants, especially from South and East Europe to the Americas often brought about tragic consequences on the life and practice of the faith of emigrated families. Some men and women, sensitive to this tragedy and driven by the Spirit of God, gave their lives to those who were like sheep without a shepherd, living deprived of all dignity and diyng as no one's children  in a foreign land.

Especially Msgr. Scalabrini, bishop of Piacenza, whom Pope Leone XIII called the Father of Migrants, was particularly struck by the state of neglect and exploitation of so many people. Having heard the suffering of migrant people, he resolved to rouse society from the indifference towards this great social phenomenon and sent missionaries, religious and laity, to preserve faith and to meet the needs of migrants.

Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, former founder of the Congregation of St. Charles Scalabrinian Missionaries (1887), on October 25^th 1895 founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles (Scalabrinians) with the collaboration of a saint and enterprising missionary, Father Giuseppe Marchetti.

Father Giuseppe Marchetti have been sent sent to Brazil to assist migrants who had found bread and work in that vast nation. His sister Assunta, solicited by the missionary zeal of his brother, agrees to be part of the first group of missionarys Sisters. In the  episcopal chapel, Bishop Scalabrini receives the vows of, gives the crucifix to, and sends the first group of nuns who the next day will sail for Brazil to assist migrants' orphans, in a total and unconditioned openness to God' Will.

The vision, courage and determination of these heroic people guide the first steps of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles. Father Marchetti died at the age of 27, in a heroic gesture of charity assisting migrants affected by typhoid fever. Msgr. Scalabrini died in 1905, after visiting emigrants to the United States of America and Brazil.

It will so be Mother Assunta Marchetti that, with wisdom and holiness will lead, hold together and consolidate the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, Scalabrinians. The Constitutions are approved "ad experimentum" on January 13^th 1934. On 15 August 1948 Pope Pio XII grants the final approval.

Meanwhile, the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles has already begun to spread outside of Brazil in other parts of the world where the cry of migrants is louder.