In 1895, Rossi and Visintainer, seeing the need for a more formal and secure organization of the young women coming to them, decided to establish a religious congregation called the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by José de Camargo Barros, Bishop of Curitiba. In December of that same year, the founding trio took religious vows. Visintainer took the religious name by which she is now known. The congregation, Brazil's first locally founded, grew quickly throughout the state, and in 1903 Pauline was elected their Superior General for life. She moved from Nova Trento to Ipiranga, São Paulo, where she opened a convent of the congregation in order to take care of orphans, the children of former slaves – slavery having been ended by the Empire of Brazil only in 1888, and aged slaves who had been left to die because they could no longer work.