History of the LSAs in Naples
The community of the Little Sisters of the Assumption in Naples had to close in November 2023, after eighty-eight years of an almost continuous existence in the city, with only a few interruptions. This is a good opportunity to commemorate their history.
As early as 1914, some women from Naples had asked the Little Sisters to set up a community there. The congregation was already well known in Italy, having established a presence in Rome in 1902, and founded a community in Turin in 1910 and another in Milan in 1913. At that time, the reply was that the large number of requests for foundations, and the insufficient number of nuns made it impossible to accept this proposal.
Eventually, it was only in 1935 that the foundation was established in what was then the industrial district of Rione Luzzatti. Here is what the superior at the time, Sr Marie Renée-Gabrielle, wrote in Le Pain de Chez Nous in October 1935:
“It was with Neapolitan enthusiasm that the Little Sisters were welcomed in a neighbourhood that had never before seen a nun. The poor quickly found a name for these “monachelle” who had come especially for them: they were the “Suore Nostre”: (our very own sisters).
In 1937, there were six sisters, and no shortage of work. Like everywhere else, they helped to provide home care and worked for the “Christian regeneration of the working class”.
During the 2nd World War, the town was devastated by no less than 110 bombings, but the LSAs continued their mission despite everything. However, in 1942, the house was bombed and destroyed. The sisters were taken in by donors and continued their mission, but their refuge was also bombed! At that point, three LSAs went to Rome, the other four remained in Naples and were successively housed thanks to various communities, friends, and the diocese, while continuing their mission under shelling.
In a letter dated 20th of June 1943, Sr Marie Marthe Isabelle[1] wrote,
“Our patients are very touched that we stay close to them, trying to ‘give them courage’, as we say here. We are often reminded of Father Charles’ lovely words, ‘There is no better way to have courage for oneself than to create it for others.”
Even after the end of the war, housing was almost impossible to find, due to destruction and requisitioning by the Allies. This of course had a major impact on the people who were being cared for by the LSAs; people who were crammed into housing that was too small and insalubrious. It also prevented the community’s seven sisters from finding a home.
Eventually, in 1947, they were able to move to Corso Vittorio Emanuele 377. At first, this location adequately suited the missionary needs. A report on a regular visit in 1953, for example, noted,
“The location of the house, truly implanted amid misery, fulfils everything that a convent of the Little Sisters could wish for”.
That same year, in 1953, work was carried out to make the house more suitable for convent life. It had twelve cells (for ten professed sisters), rooms for community life, an office, a large community room, visiting rooms, etc.
It was at this time that the affiliation of the first Lady Servants and the Fraternity was also taking place.
However, access to the house was difficult, as it was built on a steep rise of wide medieval stone steps known as Pedamentina. What’s more, little by little, the poor families in the neighbourhood were relocating to the outskirts as their houses were falling into ruin and were marked for demolition. So, the decision was finally taken for the community to relocate too. This was done in 1963, to a working-class housing estate in Rione Traiano to the west of Naples. The community lived in two small flats on the ground floor. In the basement, the sisters also set up a nursing station with its own entrance and various rooms (including a waiting room, an injection room, a dressing room, etc.). Alongside this work, the sisters carried out a whole range of community activities including catechism classes and were also involved in Catholic youth work.
A few years later, it was decided to build a house in the same neighbourhood, which the sisters moved into in 1972. The house turned out to be very large and “opulent” in appearance, in an area populated by poor people. What’s more, it was expensive to maintain. But little by little, the sisters developed several services for the neighbourhood, including a nursery school and a dispensary.
In November 1980, a major earthquake near Naples destroyed part of the city. The sisters of the community were in the chapel for Vespers during the first tremors. After taking refuge in the street, they did everything they could to help the families; they lent them their car and provided them with blankets, clothes, warm milk…
They wrote in Le Pain de Chez Nous in February 1981:
“United by this encounter [of the earthquake] which polarised everything, we experienced together [with the neighbourhood] a stronger fraternity, made easier by the fact that our common home was the street. In the evenings, we’d gather around the fire, sharing moments of even more intense fraternity, since we were all in the same situation, all equal, with the same fear, the same cold (…).
Subsequently, they did their utmost to help the families get back to normal life, “to overcome the fear“ because the whole city was affected and the earthquake had, of course, worsened already existing problems, such as housing, chronic unemployment and so on.
Life and the mission continued in the community, but the province of Italy experienced difficulties that led to the splitting of the community, which then became the Sisters of Charity of the Assumption. The house was eventually sold to the new congregation. The community in Naples continued to exist until 1993 when it moved to Vico Paparelle al Pendino.
In 2005 the congregation finally returned to Naples, with four sisters sent to the Ponticelli district, in the heart of the city where the social reality was “diverse” according to the first community project. The sisters accompanied families and groups and received training. One of them worked in the hospital. They presented the congregation when opportunities arose. In 2011, they moved to via Luigi Volpicella, 372b.
In November 2023, the closing celebration of the community was presided over by an auxiliary bishop and concelebrated by four Assumptionist fathers from Rome, in the presence of other deacons and members of the parish community. There were numerous testimonies about all that the LSAs had brought to many individuals, and families who will miss them.
[1] Sr Marie Marthe Isabelle: Isabelle Couturier (1897-1965) was born in Isère. Her first posting to Italy was to Turin in 1932. She never left Italy after that, and lived in Milan, Naples (1937-1943 then 1944-1959) and died in Milan in 1965.
