Mary C. Sullivan, The Path of Mercy: The Life of Catherine McAuley, Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84682-320-6 (hardcover), pp vii +
419
Reviewed by: Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the
Arts, Valparaiso University, USA, August 2012
Anyone with an interest in the history of women religious in general and the Sisters of Mercy
specifically will be gratified by Mary C. Sullivan’s highly anticipated biography of Catherine
McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy. This comprehensive work provides a close read
of McAuley’s life, from the early years of her childhood, through her founding of the Sisters of
Mercy, up to her death in 1841. Over the course of this deep history, Sullivan explores both the
spiritual and secular motives of her subject and gives a more complete picture of the life of
Catherine McAuley.
Many may be familiar with Sullivan’s other books, such as The Correspondence of Catherine
McAuley, 1818-1841 (2004), Catherine McAuley and the Tradition of Mercy (2000), and The
Friendship of Florence Nightingale and Mary Clare Moore (1999). With such extensive works
such as these on Catherine McAuley, the Sisters of Mercy, and even one of the first members of
her congregation (Moore), one would not think a biography of Catherine McAuley is needed.
Mary C. Sullivan, however, has spent years devoted to researching and writing about the Mercy
foundress and the insight and detail which she brings to this new biography brings the reader
closer to understanding the spiritual and historical context of McAuley’s life. In particular, one
of the largest debates of the founding of the Sisters of Mercy is whether or not McAuley was
compelled by the Church to establish a religious congregation in order to continue her
benevolent work while living in community with other single women. Sullivan adeptly gives
insights into McAuley’s religious and spiritual transformation and her intentional movement
toward vowed religious life. This is equally true of Sullivan’s treatment of McAuley’s life as a
religious. She founded the Sisters of Mercy in her mid-life, after entering the Presentation
Sisters novitiate and reacted against the constrictions of religious life. McAuley, while
remaining a devoted Catholic all her life, lived and interacted mainly with Protestants. Sullivan
argues that this informed her conception of religious life as she established the Sisters of Mercy.
McAuley resisted some of the more restrictive elements of religious life and often counseled the
members of her community to avoid too much austerity and to embrace humor. Sullivan also
pauses periodically in her narrative to investigate Catherine McAuley’s spiritual motivation at
various moments of her development from laywoman to religious founder. Furthermore,
Sullivan does not shy away from Catherine McAuley’s missteps as congregational leader, as she
details conflicts with local clergy, disputes with family, financial blunders as in the case of
business ventures like a laundry, and the starts and stops of new foundations throughout Ireland
and England. Often biographies of founders of religious congregations, especially those with a
foundress with an active cause for canonization, will include trials and troubles, but only as
something which the good sister overcame with the grace of God. Sullivan, admittedly biased
and devoted to Catherine McAuley as a member of the Sisters of Mercy, does not fall into this
trap. By laying out McAuley’s short-comings as well as her positive qualities, Sullivan provides
a rich portrait of the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy.
Sullivan offers a rich narrative of Catherine McAuley’s life that provides a more complete
picture of the Mercy foundress, who evolved in religious life. The detail which Sullivan brings
to her biography results in a more three-dimensional historical actor. Sullivan does not hide
from her readers her connection to the Sisters of Mercy or her affection for Catherine McAuley.
As a member of this religious congregation, Sullivan has been formed within Mercy spirituality
and charism. She writes as an insider, and there is always the risk that a historian’s closeness
with a person or institution and its way of thinking colors her perception or interpretation of that
institution. Mary Sullivan’s insider-status, however, will bring her readers into the world of
Catherine McAuley in a new and more intimate way. The Path of Mercy is a valuable
contribution to the historiography of Catherine McAuley, the Sisters of Mercy, and of women
religious.