Servant of God Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté - Canada

Foundress of the Institute of Misericordia Sisters.

Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté (née Cadron, January 27, 1794 – April 5, 1864), more commonly known as Rosalie Cadron-Jetté (the Marie being a Québécois Catholic tradition indicating gender), was a Canadian midwife who undertook the charitable care of unwed and struggling Canadian mothers between 1840 and 1864. She is best known as the founder of the Institute of Misericordia Sisters.

Cadron-Jetté was born and raised in Lavaltrie, Quebec, and in 1811 married Jean-Marie Jetté. They had 11 children, several of whom died young. In 1827 she moved to Montreal and in 1832 her husband died of cholera. From 1840, in collaboration with Ignace Bourget (then Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Montreal), she engaged in the charitable care of unwed mothers. At this time in Montreal, unwed mothers and those associating with them attracted a significant social stigma. Cadron-Jetté operated initially out of her own home and the homes of her children, and later, with the aid of other women, worked from a series of buildings known as the Hospice de Sainte-Pélagie. In 1848, she undertook nun's vows, along with several other women, and founded a Roman Catholic religious community known as the Institute of Misericordia Sisters, dedicated to the care of unwed mothers and their children; and in 1849 obtained formal midwifery qualifications. In 1853 the Misericordia Sisters built a convent on the corner of Dorchester Boulevard and Saint-André Street and she lived there the remainder of her life.

Cadron-Jetté died in 1864. After her death, Ignace Bourget, with whom she had worked closely throughout her life, proposed that Cadron-Jetté be considered for canonization by the Roman Catholic Church. Over a century later, in 1989, the proposal was put into effect and her canonization cause was opened. In 1990 she was declared a Servant of God, the first of four steps on the path to canonization, and as of 2010 she is being considered for a declaration as "heroic in virtue", the second of the four steps.