“The best way to ensure that you will receive future gifts, blessings, and graces of God is to be grateful and thankful for those He has already given you.”
Aloysius was born in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 1930, to Louis and Cedelia Schwartz. He was the 3rd of 7 children and his father sold furniture door-to-door. His mother died of cancer when he was 16.
He grew up with the idea of becoming a secular priest and working as a missionary, with an apostolate to the poor.
At the age of 14, he entered Saint Charles Seminary in Maryland and finished his degree at Maryknoll College. He then applied and was accepted to join the Society of the Auxiliaries of Missions in Belgium and studied theology at Louvain Catholic University there. He had discovered the apparition of The Virgin of the Poor at Banneux during his studies and was inspired as he spent his little free time helping at ragpickers’ camps. He visited the apparition site twice, gave Mary his life, and spent many hours in contemplation over Mary’s few words to the young girl.
He returned home, was ordained a priest, and shortly after, petitioned the Bishop of the Diocese of Busan in South Korea for permission to work there. The Korean War had reduced hundreds of thousands into homelessness and poverty and Schwartz therefore wanted to assist.
At the age of 27, he was accepted and arrived in Busan, South Korea and immediately saw the horrendous effects of the war. There were many widows, orphans, beggars, and street children. Half of the adult population was unemployed and resorted to selling minor items, begging, and stealing. He put in long hours providing ministry and learning Korean in a cold setting with meager food.
Shortly he had arrived he was diagnosed with hepatitis and returned home for proper care. While recovering, he gave presentations about Korea’s conditions, set up a non-profit organization for support, and initiated direct mail campaigns.
He returned to South Korea where he was assigned as pastor of Saint Joseph. He gave up his rectory to the Benedictine sisters and built a small shack for his own residence. He founded the religious congregation of the Sisters of Mary in 1964, founded on the Feast of the Assumption, to assist in the extensive work, and opened both Boystowns and Girlstowns as orphanages and schools. The Sisters and Schwartz built hospitals and sanatoriums as well as hostels for the homeless and disabled older men, mentally disabled children, and unwed mothers.
He spent hours before the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary, hearing confessions, and heroically preaching in words and examples the virtues of truth, justice, chastity, charity, and humility.
In 1981, he started the Brothers of Christ, a religious institute for men.
2 years later, Cardinal Jaime Sin invited him to bring his religious community to aid the poor in Manilla, Philippines, of which he founded the Sisters of Mary at Santa Mesa, Manila.
In 1989, he was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal illness, and despite his deteriorating health and being confined to a wheelchair, he established Boystowns and Girlstowns in Mexico. He returned to the Philippines in 1991 and died on March 16, 1992, due to the disease.
The Sisters of Mary and the Brothers of Christ continue to live their charism of serving 20,000 of the poorest of the poor, with 17 Catholic Boystowns and Girlstowns throughout the world, the broadest non-governmentally funded service for poor children and orphans.
For God’s Glory.



