[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      RECOGNIZING THE SISTERS OF MERCY ON THEIR 150TH ANNIVERSARY

  (Mr. HIGGINS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today asking you to join me in 
recognizing the 150th anniversary of the Sisters of Mercy of Buffalo, 
New York.
  The Sisters of Mercy were founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831 by 
Catherine McAuley. The first order was formed in the United States in 
1843 in the city of Pittsburgh.
  The Sisters of Mercy came to Buffalo, New York in 1858. And since 
that time, from a small teaching order of Mercy nuns, they established 
a Catholic school system in Buffalo, New York, hospitals where they 
ministered to our sick, schools where they taught our children and 
provided an extraordinary example of compassion and love throughout the 
western New York community.
  The Sisters of Mercy are also doing extraordinary humanitarian work 
throughout the entire world in very volatile places like Africa and the 
Middle East. And the Sisters of Mercy were represented here today in 
our Nation's Capital at the first papal visit of Pope Benedict to the 
United States.
  Sister Margaret Ann Coughlin, a long-time friend and 50-year member 
of the Sisters of Mercy, was here today to join in the celebration that 
this Nation held in welcoming the new Pope to the United States.
  The Sisters of Mercy have cared, not only in the United States, but 
throughout the world, for the despised and the dispossessed. And those 
who have been forsaken have never been forsaken by the Sisters of 
Mercy.
  A lot of the institutions that they started, schools, hospitals, are 
now run by lay people and also administered by lay people, but what 
remains, Mr. Speaker, is the constant love and compassion, that 
principle that was established first and foremost and continues today 
by the Sisters of Mercy.

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