Pope Pius IX gave a decision on July 1, 1875, and authorized Mother Mary Maddalena and her sister, Mother Mary Constance, to proceed to [the then-destination of] Minnesota to found a monastery of the order of St. Clare. How little this permission of the Holy Father was for him merely routine work, appears from the words that he spoke in August: I hesitated to send to America these two, good religious, never accustomed to leave their enclosure, but vanquished at last by the urgent solicitations of the Americans, I have consented after many months of uncertainty. It has taken so long a time until they desired religious of a contemplative order! Well, I said to them, you Americans, you contemplate dollar bills! Yet now, we hope, all will be well.