Maria Teresa Bonzel

Maria Theresia Bonzel (17 September 1830 – 6 February 1905), born Regina Christine Wilhelmine Bonzel, was a German religious sister. She was the founder of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Perpetual Adoration. By the time of her death, the congregation had sisters all over the world, and had established schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

Bonzel was beatified in 2013 by Cardinal Angelo Amato on behalf of Pope Francis.

Biography Regina Christine Wilhelmine Bonzel was born on 17 September 1830, the elder of two daughters of Friedrich Edmund and Angela Maria Liese Bonzel. She was familiarly called "Aline". Her mother sent her to study at the Ursulines in Cologne and it was there that her vocation matured. Her parents were opposed to her desire to enter religious life but she nonetheless entered the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1850. Alongside eight other women she joined and took the name of "Maria Theresia". During the war years of 1870-71, eight hundred wounded soldiers were cared for by the Sisters from Olpe.

During the Kulturkampf, an anticlerical reaction against the growing strength of the Catholic Church, the Sisters were forbidden to receive new candidates. The orphanage was closed by order of the government and the children taken away. Bonzel decided to begin a new foundation in North America.

The first missionaries arrived in Lafayette, Indiana, in December 1875 and began their work of caring for the sick. The congregation grew and the Sisters were able to open many new hospitals and schools. Bonzel wrote to the American sisters often. She made three separate voyages across the ocean to visit her Sisters in the United States.