The Zusters van Schijndel (the Sisters of Schijndel — a Dutch Catholic religious congregation of women) were the religious sisterhood assigned by the Apostolic Vicariate of Padang to the Catholic mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh in the early twentieth century, where — in the canonical account of the mission jubilee volume of 1934 — they conducted the schools, the boarding-school (internant), and the female associational life (the Elizabeth Society, etc.) of the mission, and contributed to the growth of the Catholic population of Koeta Radja-Atjeh to “ver over de 1000” (“well over a thousand”) by the early 1930s.
The 1934 account
The mission jubilee volume of 1934 records the Zusters van Schijndel in the chapter on the staties of the Apostolic Vicariate of Padang, in the entry for the Koeta Radja-Atjeh station:
“e). Koeta Radja-Atjeh. Reeds maakten we met ‘n enkel woord melding van het ontstaan van deze statie. Van groote vooruitgang mag in de laatste jaren vooral deze statie getuigen. Het totaal aantal Katholieken gaat reeds ver over de 1000. Scholen, onder leiding van de Zusters van Schijndel, een internant, Eucharistische bond, Elisabeth-vereeniging, K.S.B., K.O.B. en Sint-Ignatius geven blijk van opgewekt Katholiek leven. Van Koeta Radja uit worden verschillende reizen gemaakt, reizen, die niet altijd ongevaarlijk zijn. Sabang wordt ook geregeld van deze statie uit bediend.”
The Zusters van Schijndel are thus fixed, in the 1934 record, as the educational leadership of the Koeta Radja-Atjeh mission — the sisterhood under whose direction the schools of the station were conducted. The schools, together with the internant (boarding-school) and the apparatus of colonial Catholic associational life (the Eucharistic Bond, the Elizabeth Society, the K.S.B. — Katholieke Sociale Bond, the K.O.B. — Katholieke Onderwijzers Bond, and the Sint-Ignatius), constitute the institutional apparatus of the mature colonial mission.
Function in the Atjeh mission
The Zusters van Schijndel’s function in the Catholic mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh was the education of the Catholic youth of the colonial capital — the children of the Catholic soldiery, colonial officials, and harbour personnel who constituted the Catholic population of Koeta Radja. The educational role of the sisterhood was, in the colonial Catholic mission economy, the typical female complement to the male chaplaincy: where Verbraak and his successors served the adult Catholic population through the chaplaincy, the Zusters van Schijndel served the youthful Catholic population through the schools. The growth of the Catholic population to “ver over de 1000” by the early 1930s is, in the canonical account, the measure of the sisterhood’s contribution.
Significance
The Zusters van Schijndel are significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on two counts. First, they are the principal documented female religious presence in colonial Atjeh — the sisterhood that, in the early twentieth century, conducted the schools and the female associational life of the Catholic mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh. Second, their educational leadership — fixed in the 1934 record by the single phrase “Scholen, onder leiding van de Zusters van Schijndel” (“Schools, under the direction of the Sisters of Schijndel”) — is the documentary witness of the institutional consolidation of the Catholic mission in Atjeh from the wartime chaplaincy of the 1870s to the mature colonial mission of the 1930s, with its schools, its boarding-school, and its full apparatus of Catholic associational life. The growth of the Catholic population to over a thousand, in the canonical account, is the measure of the sisterhood’s contribution to that consolidation.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Catholic Mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh
- E. S. Luypen
- Koeta Radja
- Pastoor H. C. Verbraak
- Sabang
- Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch Indië (1934)
- 1934
Source
Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934 (Batavia: Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, [1934]), p. 96 (chapter on the Padang vicariate, entry for the Koeta Radja-Atjeh station).