Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory

Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory was born Bridget Teresa McCrory on 21 January 1893 in Mountjoy, County Tyrone, Ireland, into a Catholic family. While she was still a young child her family left Ireland for Scotland, and she grew up there. From an early age she was drawn to religious life and to the care of the poor. In 1912 she entered the Little Sisters of the Poor in France and received the religious name Sister Angeline of Saint Teresa. After her novitiate and profession she was sent to the United States, where she served in homes for the elderly operated by her congregation in several cities, including Pittsburgh and New York.

By the mid-1920s she had been appointed superior of a home for the aged in the Bronx. In that office she became convinced that the traditional European pattern of institutional care followed by the Little Sisters did not adequately meet the needs or the dignity of elderly people in the United States. She sought a more homelike setting, greater personal respect for residents, and methods of care better suited to American conditions. Disagreement with her superiors over these questions led her, with a small group of companions, to leave the Little Sisters of the Poor. With the support of Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York, they began a new community in 1929 devoted exclusively to the aged and infirm.

The new congregation, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, was established in New York in 1929. In 1931 it was affiliated with the Carmelite Order, and she took the name Mother Mary Angeline Teresa. Under her direction the sisters opened residences that stressed a family atmosphere, the dignity of each resident, and professional standards of nursing and geriatric care. The community expanded across the United States and later to other countries. She served as superior general for many years, shaping both the congregation’s apostolate and its Carmelite spirituality, which joined contemplative prayer with active service to the elderly.

Mother Mary Angeline Teresa spent her later years at the congregation’s motherhouse, Avila on the Hudson, in Germantown, New York. She died there on 21 January 1984, her ninety-first birthday, and was buried at the motherhouse. Her cause for canonization was introduced in the Diocese of Albany. She was declared a Servant of God, and in 2012 Pope Francis recognized her heroic virtues, conferring the title Venerable. She has not been beatified or canonized. She is remembered as a pioneer of modern Catholic care for the aged in North America and as foundress of a congregation that continues that work.