Mary Ward, English Catholic Religious Sister (d. 1645)
Mary Ward, (I.B.V.M.) (23 January 1585 – 30 January 1645), was an English Catholic nun whose activities led to the founding of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, less well known as the Sisters of Loreto. There is now a network of around 200 Mary Ward schools worldwide. (This is not to be confused with the American Sisters of Loretto, founded in 1812, which also hosts a global education network.) Ward was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 December 2009.