Women Religious: A Blessing to Our Diocese
Recently we received the news of the return of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from Philadelphia to the Diocese of Raleigh. They had come in 1973 to staff the Cathedral School when I was the Rector of the Cathedral. They gave twenty years of dedicated ministry to the Diocese.
This news made me think about all the Sisters I had known in my life. They played a prominent and lasting place in my heart and life. I feel confident that others have had this same experience.
I was taught at St. Monica School by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton. They taught also in the Black Catholic Schools in New Bern and Washington.
I had the privilege of being with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary when I was Pastor in New Bern.
Their influence reached far beyond the schools. Their students, as they matured and finished their higher education, became leaders in the community. This was also true in the other Catholic Schools taught by other Communities of Religious. Father JaVan Saxon and I are two priests who were taught by Sisters and became priests of the Diocese of Raleigh. Other men became priests in religious orders.
Some of the women who were taught by Sisters became Religious in the Oblate Sisters of Providence of Baltimore, The Mercy Sisters of Belmont and the Sisters, Adorers of the Precious Blood, as far as I am aware and remember.
As I look at African Ancestry Ministry and Evangelization, many of the people who are very active and giving of their time and talent to our ministry were taught by women Religious.
Other women Religious with whom I was associated also helped me mature in my understanding of priestly ministry. I am thinking particularly of the Sisters of St. Ursula of Rhinebeck, N.Y. I was with them as Pastor of St. Mary in Wilmington.
Women Religious still enrich the Church of Raleigh by serving as Pastoral Administrators, Pastoral Associates, Directors of Religious Education, and in more ways which we are still to fathom.
- Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden