Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The institute was founded in the Catalan city of Olot, (Spain) in 1848 by Father Joaquim Masmitjà i de Puig as a means of rebuilding society through the education of young women.

[1] A daughter house of the community was founded in Los Angeles, California, United States, in 1871, and in 1924 formally separated from the Spanish congregation and was established as a distinct institute.

Joaquim Masmitjà was born in the Catalan city of Olot (Spain) on December 29, 1808, the fourth child of Francesc and Maria Gracia.

Masmitjà, who was greatly devoted to the Blessed Virgin under the titles of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sorrowful Mother, was ordained a priest on February 22, 1834.

During a stop in their journey back to California, Bishop Henry Granjon of Tucson, Arizona, invited the sisters to stay and they accepted.

[4] In 2010 the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from Miami, started a new mission in La Concordia, Diocese of Jinotega, Nicaragua, Central America.

The IHM Sisters took part in a process of renewal led by the psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers, founder of the Center for the Study of the Person, an affiliate of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute.

Carl Rogers and his associates Bruce Meador and Bill Coulson conducted encounter groups according to the principles of the Human Potential Movement.

With its apparent success, the experiment was begun en masse in 1967, with all the sisters and the schools they ran in the Los Angeles Archdiocese participating.

Immaculate Heart Blythe Street serves the San Fernando Valley, located in Panorama City, Los Angeles.

The Immaculate Heart Community has since 1943 run a Center for Spiritual Renewal and La Casa de Maria on 26 acres in Montecito, California.

Disputes of ownership between two of the five remaining Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Archdiocese gained media attention when Katy Perry attempted to purchase the estate in 2015, with plans to restore it to a private mansion.

[13] On April 13, 2016, a judge ruled that the property belonged to the Los Angeles Archdiocese, and that the Sisters' planned sale to restaurateur Dana Hollister for $15.5 million was not authorized.

[14][15][16][17][18] On November 17, 2017, a Los Angeles jury awarded over $5 million in legal costs to Katy Perry and the archdiocese, and found that Hollister "acted with malice, oppression or fraud" in the dispute over ownership of the property.