Camila Rolón

María Camila Rolón was born on 18 July 1842 in San José de los Arroyos, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a rural Catholic milieu of the mid-nineteenth-century Río de la Plata. She grew up in a pious family of modest means and received a simple education. From an early age she was drawn to prayer, catechesis, and practical charity toward poor children and the sick, at a time when much of Argentine society still lacked schools and organized care for the abandoned. She discerned a vocation to consecrated life oriented not only to personal holiness but to a new community that would serve the poorest.

After a period of seeking how to live that call, she gathered companions and, with ecclesiastical approval, founded the Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Saint Joseph (Hermanas Pobres de San José) in 1880. The institute took Saint Joseph as patron and model of humble, hidden labor. Its members embraced evangelical poverty and devoted themselves to the education of poor girls, the care of orphans, and assistance to the sick and elderly. Houses, schools, and works of mercy were opened in Buenos Aires and in other localities of the Argentine interior as the congregation slowly took root under diocesan oversight.

Rolón served as the first superior, forming the sisters in simplicity, trust in providence, and concrete charity. Under her government the community obtained diocesan recognition and began to stabilize its rule and apostolates. She spent her later years at the house in Moreno, Buenos Aires Province, continuing to guide the congregation despite declining health. She died there on 16 February 1913.

After her death the Poor Sisters of Saint Joseph continued their work in education and social service in Argentina and later beyond. A cause for beatification was introduced; on 14 June 2016 Pope Francis authorized the decree on her heroic virtues, declaring her Venerable. She has not been beatified or canonized. Her memory is kept chiefly within her congregation and in the local Church of Argentina as that of a foundress who sought to incarnate the charity of Saint Joseph among the poor of her time.