a Crown Princess, she received petitioners asking for help twice a week, and her activity expanded over the years. Her main focus was the support of poor women and children. She founded the Sällskapet de fattigas vänner ('Friends of the Poor Society') for poor widows in 1826; Sällskapet för uppmuntran av öm och sedlig modersvård ('Society for Tender and Proper Motherly care') for the support of poor mothers in 1827; Sällskapet för arbetsamhetens uppmuntran ('Society for Work Encouagement'), an employment agency for women in 1833; and Kronprinsessans slöjdskola för fattiga flickor ('The Crown Princess' Handcrafts School for Poor Girls'). . Josephine, though deeply religious and influenced by the Christian idea of charity, did not believe it to be the task of religion but of the state to provide welfare, and she kept the two issues separate in her charity work. In her library, there were works about early Christian socialism, which appear to have been thoroughly read. Josephine had her own Catholic chapel at the Royal Palace. Privately, she is known to have tried to influence her mother-in-law to be more than a Catholic in name only: in 1844, her confessor stated that she had managed to convince her mother-in-law to attend confession for the first time in fifty years. Oscar always supported her religious rights, regardless of their personal relationship. As for the children, she could not interfere in their religion, however, she did speak with them of religion: she and her confessor sorted out everything they could find mutual in Catholicism and Lutheranism, and about these things, she felt free to talk about with her children without interfering. Josephine took a great interest in Catholicism in Sweden and Norway. Upon her arrival, she found the Catholic congregation in Stockholm to be neglected. Among other things, it did not have a proper church building, and she felt that the current Catholic priest, Jean Baptiste Gridaine, who was also the confessor of her mother-in-law, damaged the reputation of the Catholics because of it. Upon the death of Gridaine in 1833, he was replaced by her own confessor Studach. 16 September 1837, the Sankta Eugenia Church in Stockholm was founded in her presence, the effort of her and Studach's work: this was the first Catholic church in Scandinavia since the Reformation, and became the first apostolic vicariate in Scandinavia: Norway was incorporated in 1841. She attended mass there herself on Sundays.