Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, more commonly known as the Loreto Sisters (abbreviated as I.B.V.M. as the postnominal initials for members of the Insititue), is a women's Catholic religious order founded by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609 at Saint-Omer in northern France. It was named Loreto after the shrine at Loreto, Marche in Italy where Mary Ward used to pray.

After being suppressed for a short period between 1630 and 1639, the Institute was slowly revived, receiving complete canonical approval in 1877. In North America, the original spelling of "Loretto" is used.

Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1632

In the early 1630s, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the "English Ladies", while formally suppressed as a religious order, also had supporters within the Roman Catholic Church, particularly among the Jesuits. For example, it had some access to the Jesuits' independent postal system. Since it also had some very influential patrons outside the church, it had some freedom to operate in some areas, and some protection from the Inquisition. Two of its patrons were Duke Maximilian and Duchess Elisabeth Renata of Bavaria, and Mary Ward and the Ladies had established themselves in Munich in 1627. In March of 1632, in a variation from events in the OTL, Pope Urban VIII sent them back to Munich to reopen their school as lay teachers. At the time of the "Bavarian Crisis" in 1634, they were in Munich, at least nominally under the patronage of Duchess Mechthilde, who assumed the role after Elisabeth Renata's death.

In July of 1634, Urban VIII revoked the order's dissolution within the United States of Europe, and ordered the Ladies to leave Munich and move to Grantville, where they were to operate under Cardinal Lawrence Mazzare. Shortly after Mary Ward received those orders, Mary Simpson and Veronica Dreeson were informally interned in the order's house in Munich. The two women left with the order, as did Archduchess Maria Anna.