Pope Leo XIV Urges Sisters to Heal Divisions Through Charity
At a private audience marking the chapter and the bicentenary of their foundress's death, he linked integral charity to restoring human dignity.
On October 26, 2026, Pope Leo XIV held a private audience in the Apostolic Palace with the delegates of the General Chapter of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret. The religious family is marking the bicentenary of the death of its foundress, Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret.
Speaking to the superior general elect and to the general council, the Holy Father congratulated her on her re-election and praised the communal discernment that guided the chapter. He singled out the assembly’s theme — “In Christ, the roots; in the world, the mission” — as a sure path for the congregation’s future.
Charity That Restores the Whole Person
Pope Leo XIV urged the sisters to place Christ at the center of their existence, following the example of their foundress. He recalled Saint Jeanne-Antide’s care for the “integral good, spiritual and temporal, of one’s neighbor.” In a society that “tends to fragment the person,” he said, that form of charity is “fundamental for the restoration, promotion and authentic respect for the dignity of every person, especially the poorest and most in need.”
The Pope’s appeal situates the sisters’ vocation at the heart of the Church’s mission: a charity that does not separate soul from body and that heals the divisions tearing at human dignity, beginning with those who have least.
A Mission Across More Than 25 Countries
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret serve today in more than 25 countries. Their apostolic work draws in sisters together with lay people, young people, volunteers, and collaborators. In France they have long been known as the “sisters of the soup kitchen,” a popular title that recalls their concrete care for the hungry and the abandoned.
The congregation was founded in Besançon in 1799. Pope Pius VII approved the institute in 1819. Under later nationalist pressures the order divided into French and Italian branches; those branches were reunited in 1954, recovering the unity of the charism.
At the conclusion of the audience, Pope Leo XIV blessed the sisters and entrusted their chapter and their mission to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and of Saint Jeanne-Antide.