Missionaries of Charity their families every five years but do not take annual holidays. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics constitute the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. The first home of the Missionaries of Charity in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York. In the USA, the Missionaries of Charity are affiliated with the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, a body of female religious, representing 20% of American nuns. They are identified by the wearing of religious habits, and loyalty to church teaching. By 1996, the organisation was operating
Missionaries of the Precious Blood not take vows but are held together by the bond of charity only and by a promise of "fidelity to the Congregation of Missionaries of the Precious Blood in accordance with its Constitution and Statutes, giving [themselves] entirely to the service of God". (see the formula of incorporation found in C37 of the Normative Texts 2008.) The stated charism of the Society is to bring the Word of God to where it is most needed. Saint Gaspare del Bufalo founded the Society at the request of Pope Pius VII, who was shocked by the spiritual situation in Rome after he