Sister Ida Peterfy, SDSH

From Hungary to California

Ida Peterfy was born on October 7, 1922, in Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia). In 1940, she founded the Fraternal Community of the Sacred Heart, the precursor to the SDSH. Her early years of consecrated life were shaped by the catastrophic upheavals of World War II. During the Nazi occupation in 1944, she helped shelter Jewish families, risking her own life to protect the innocent.

After the war, Hungary fell under Communist rule. In 1948, the regime seized all religious houses and banned religious life. Sister Ida was forced to live in hiding, continuing her vocation in secret. In 1950, she made the dangerous escape from Hungary through Austria to Italy, eventually making her way to the United States, where she arrived in 1956.

Settling in California, Sister Ida was struck by the need for vibrant, joyful religious education for children. In 1958, she founded the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart (SDSH) in Los Angeles, a new religious community dedicated to catechesis. Her innovative methods used drama, art, music, and storytelling to make the faith come alive for children, a radical departure from the rote memorization common at the time.

Under her leadership, the SDSH grew to multiple locations across California, training hundreds of catechists and touching the lives of thousands of children. Her methods were adopted by dioceses throughout the Western United States. Sister Ida died on February 8, 2000, in Los Angeles. In 2016, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles opened her cause for canonization, and she was declared a Servant of God.

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