Trinity Health - Building on Traditions of Service

Created by the consolidation of Holy Cross Health System and Mercy Health Services, Trinity Health blends and carries on two rich traditions of serving persons in need.

Holy Cross Health System has its roots in the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, founded in 1841 by Father Basil Anthony Moreau.

During the Civil War, Holy Cross Sisters helped staff military hospitals, caring for the wounded of both the North and the South. Over the next 100 years, the Sisters opened hospitals and other health care facilities throughout the country, responding to the needs of the times.

In 1979, Holy Cross Health System was formed to bring unity as well as economic and professional solidarity to the health care organizations sponsored by the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross.

From the mid 19th century to the present, the Holy Cross tradition has been one of meeting community needs and accepting inherent risks of changing and adapting but always being centered in reading the signs of the times and responding in faith and hope and with compassion.

In 1831, Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland, to follow Christ in his compassion for suffering people. Over the next 10 years, she and her Sisters established 14 foundations to serve the poor, the sick and the uneducated throughout Ireland and England.

After Catherine's death in 1841, the Sisters of Mercy took their mission to America where they responded to others' needs and suffering by founding hospitals, schools and orphanages, and establishing homes for women and girls at risk.

The Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Detroit traces its roots to convents, schools and hospitals founded as early as the 1860s and ‘70s in Iowa and Michigan. In 1976, the Sisters created a health system, eventually called Mercy Health Services, to link and better support their hospitals.

Through all these changes, the words of Catherine McAuley remain true and encouraging: "Put your whole trust in God; he will never see you want for the means to do his work."