Mother Mary Magdalene Bentivoglio

The Noblewoman Who Brought Contemplative Life to America

Anna Bentivoglio was born on July 29, 1834, in Rome, into a family of Italian and French nobility. Drawn to the contemplative life, she entered the Order of Saint Clare, the Poor Clares, and took the religious name Mary Magdalene. Her sister Constanza joined her in religious life. By 1875, Anna had spent more than two decades in the cloister when Pope Pius IX asked her to undertake an extraordinary mission: establish the Poor Clares in the United States.

The two sisters arrived in America with no money, no contacts, and no English. They were contemplative nuns, not missionaries, and the American Church had little experience accommodating cloistered communities. Bishop after bishop turned them away. They wandered from diocese to diocese, relying entirely on divine providence, sleeping in borrowed rooms, and subsisting on the charity of strangers.

In 1878, after years of rejection, Mother Bentivoglio established the first Poor Clare monastery in the United States in Omaha, Nebraska. From that single foundation, the Order spread. She guided the establishment of new monasteries across the country, adapting the ancient Franciscan rule to American conditions while preserving its contemplative heart.

Mother Mary Magdalene Bentivoglio died on August 19, 1905, in Evansville, Indiana. Today, more than twenty Poor Clare monasteries in the United States and Canada trace their roots to her foundations. When her body was exhumed years later, it was found incorrupt. Her cause for canonization was introduced in 1929 and resumed in 1969.

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