Elizabeth Prout

Confronted with the extreme misery of the workers and Irish immigrants in Manchester, Elizabeth Prout visited the sick, educated children, and trained young female workers. In 1852, with the help of Fathers Gaudentius Rossi and Ignatius Spencer, she founded a new religious community that welcomed working-class women without requiring a dowry. In 1855, she moved to Sutton, St Helens, where she opened and managed schools. Despite difficulties and an ecclesiastical inquiry, the congregation developed under the name of the Sisters of the Holy Cross and Passion, adopting a rule inspired by that of Saint Paul of the Cross.

Exhausted by illness, Elizabeth Prout died of tuberculosis on January 11, 1864, at the Sutton convent at the age of 43. She was buried at St. Anne's Church in Sutton. In 1973, her body was exhumed and reinterred in a new shrine alongside Blessed Dominic Barberi and Venerable Ignatius Spencer. Her cause for beatification was officially opened in 1994 in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, and the Positio on her heroic virtues was approved by theologians in January 2019.

On January 21, 2021, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Elizabeth Prout, conferring upon her the title of Venerable. For her beatification, the recognition of a miracle is required; investigations have been conducted into unexplained healings in Chile, where her congregation is active.

Elizabeth Prout's spirituality is centered on the Passion of Christ, seeing in the poor the crucified of her time. Nicknamed the "Mother Teresa of Manchester," she leaves a lasting legacy. Today, the Sisters of the Cross and Passion continue their mission of education and social justice in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Peru), and Vietnam.