Its history

From the beginning, it appeared to Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, that the educational role of the nuns should not stop at the final classes but continue with meetings, help moral, even material. Almost all the houses had their association of old or a “Congregation of Ladies Children of Mary”, which sometimes accommodated people who had not been students of the Sacred Heart alongside former boarders (1).

At the end of the 1950s, in many countries, such as Holland, the alumni began to organize themselves at the national level.

In 1958, at the initiative of the President of the Netherlands, Maria van Mierlo, also a member of the Council of Europe and convinced of the strength of an international association, a first meeting of the national Presidents of Europe took place in Brussels on the occasion of the World Expo.

In 1960, on the advice of the Superior General, Mother Sabine de Valon, who perceived the importance that the alumni could have for the diffusion of the spirituality of the Sacred Heart, a “world gathering” took place in Trinidad and Tobago. Rome, to which this time were invited all alumni from all over the world.

A third International Congress was to be held again in Brussels in May 1965, for the centenary of the death of the founder of the Sacred Heart, during which the idea of forming a world association, led by Baroness Coppée, was ratified.

The statutes of the new world association were officially signed and deposited a year later on May 24, 1966 in Trinita dei Monti in Rome. The AMASC, which was to allow tens of thousands of alumni around the world to connect, was born.

The day after its creation, on May 25, 1966, AMASC asked to become a member of the WUCWO (World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations / World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations), an organization of Catholic women present in more than 66 countries that aims to promote the presence, participation of Catholic women in society and in the Church, to enable them to fulfill their mission of evangelization and to work for human development.

In 1970, at its 3rd World Congress in Madrid, it was decided that AMASC would join the OMAEC (World Alumni Organization of Catholic Students)which was founded in 1967, to which AMASC still belongs.

(1) La Société du Sacré-Cœur dans le monde de son temps, Sr Monique Luirard, p.140 et s