Society of the Atonement

On October 17, 1894, she became a postulant in the Episcopal community of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus in Albany, New York, where she made her vows on September 25, 1896.

White asked Wattson's help in finding an Episcopal community of religious which practised corporate poverty in the Catholic Franciscan tradition.

Wattson was unaware of any such community, but began corresponding with her regarding his desire to see the Anglican and Catholic Churches reunited under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome.

In October 1898, White and Wattson met at her family's home in Warwick, New York, and made a spiritual covenant to form a new religious community with the aim of re-establishing Franciscan life in the Anglican Communion.

The chapel fell into disuse and disrepair, but the trustees of St. Philip's gave White leave to use it and a nearby farmhouse until a convent should be built.

Meanwhile Wattson had spent some time at the Anglican Monastery of the Order of the Holy Cross at Westminster, Missouri, to gain some experience of religious life in community.

The Society preached the primacy of the Roman pontiff, while keeping its Episcopal allegiance, as they worked to realize a corporate reunion between the two bodies.

Due to this, the founders and their small number of disciples came to find themselves not only criticised but ostracised by their co-religionists, who saw them as walking an impossible tightrope between the two bodies.

In October 1909, the Vatican took the unprecedented step of accepting the members of the Society as a corporate body,[9] allowing the Friars and Sisters to remain in their established way of life.

Now in union with the Bishop of Rome, the Friars of the Atonement continued their work of advocating the reconciliation and eventual reunion of the various Christian denominations with the Pope as spiritual leader, known as ecumenism.

In March 2017, the diocesan phase of the process was closed, and Wattson's collected writings were forwarded to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.

[9] The friars sponsor the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, which has offices in the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive in New York.