News

Groups of Sisters, Associates, ministry partners, alumni, students, collaborators and friends planned activities on and around the SNJM Day of Service and Justice designated by the Congregational Leadership Team on Oct. 6, ranging from quiet prayers to advocacy for the needs of society and the Earth.

In Seattle, WA, 13 Sisters and Associates gathered with members of other religious congregations, Holy Names Academy students and others to participate in an anti-human trafficking vigil held in downtown Seattle, organized each month by the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center.

Members of Holy Redeemer Parish and students at St. Mary’s Academy in Portland, OR joined 19 Sisters who volunteered to cut fabric pieces for infant clothes, blankets and bibs. Mary Murphy, a St. Mary’s alumna and Holy Redeemer parishioner, sews the pieces for Mother & Child, formerly Birthright, a nonprofit that assists women and children in need. Meanwhile, Sisters Joan Flynn and Cathy Beckley joined a rally calling for an end to the contract between a regional Oregon prison and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On the feast day, Sisters and Associates from the Yakima Mission Centre helped out at a food bank in Toppenish, WA. Every Saturday a lunch is served to people experiencing homelessness.

In the Mid-Atlantic region, members of the congregation gathered to pray and write letters to legislators. Six members shared a prayer and read from Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical before heading for the Long Branch tributary to the Anacostia River to work on cleaning up the water before it flows into the Chesapeake Bay.

Sisters, Associates and students at Holy Names schools in the Bay Area joined forces for several service projects as well as community-building activities. Holy Names University students played Blessed Marie Rose trivia and wrote cards to retired Sisters in the South Bay. On Oct. 5, students, alumni, staff and volunteers at HNU including Sisters Carol Nicklas and Carol Sellman worked alongside Holy Names High School students to clean up the area around Lake Merritt where the first Holy Names Sisters lived when they arrived in California 150 years ago.

Holy Names High School celebrated Rose Week, with a special Mass on Oct. 3 that included an invitation for students to write their prayer intentions and place them in bowl to be taken to the altar. A celebration was held after Mass with a birthday cake for Blessed Marie Rose.

Sisters in an assisted living center in Campbell, CA celebrated Blessed Marie Rose’s feast day with a prayer service created by Sister Aileen Carissimi. And on the other side of the country, in Albany, NY, a group of Holy Names Sisters, Associates and friends gathered in the former provincial administration building on Oct. 6 to celebrate with prayer and lunch.

Sister Kay Burton decided to honor Blessed Marie Rose by joining a community group in cleaning trash and mowing the grounds of the Jonestown City Park in Jonestown, MS. The Holy Names Sisters have deep ties with the people in the area, where Holy Names health and education ministries date back to the 1980s.

The Sisters of the Holy Names of the U.S.-Ontario Province strongly disagree with the new policy of the Trump Administration that tears children away from their parents who are seeking asylum on the southern U.S. border. Asylum seekers from Central America travel a long distance from their home countries at considerable risk because they want to live in peace, without fear of gangs abducting their children and senseless killings of innocent people, oftentimes by the military in their own countries.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said, “We don’t want to separate families, but we don’t want families to come to the border illegally and attempt to enter this country improperly.” However, the United States for many years has managed to provide asylum hearings to parents without dividing families. The Trump Administration has created a crisis for unaccompanied children by taking more than 700 minors from their parents between October 2017 and mid-April. The new administration policy is to not let any asylum seekers into the country on our border with Mexico. We find it extremely inhumane that families fleeing to our country for asylum are being cruelly wrenched apart once they cross our border.

There are also reports that between 1,000 and 1,500 unaccompanied children who made the hazardous journey to the U.S. without their parents cannot be accounted for by government agencies that have responsibility for them.

What has happened to our moral compass as a country, and what has happened to the family values that the White House supposedly upholds? It might be a good time to remind this administration and all U.S. Christians that Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do also to me.”

We strongly urge President Trump and all members of Congress to stop the inhumane policy of forcing apart children and their parents as families seek asylum with our country.

U.S.-Ontario Province Leadership Team
Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary support the actions of those who seek reasonable regulations on firearms following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It is morally wrong to remain silent and inactive in the presence of mortal danger to schoolchildren and those who care for them.

We extend our heartfelt prayers to those who will never cease to mourn the loss of those 17 precious lives, and we agree with those who cry out that prayers are not enough. We affirm the call by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for a ban on assault weapons. The USCCB states, “We must respond. Violence – in our homes, our schools and streets, our nation and world – is destroying the lives, dignity and hopes of millions of our sisters and brothers.”

Throughout our religious community’s 175-year history, we have been committed to loving and educating students. We remain committed to the mission of our foundress to support the full development of the human person. This cannot happen when the realistic fear of a mass shooting pollutes the atmosphere of every classroom.

We repeat our call for lawmakers to enact legislation that will end the constant threat of gun violence in the United States. We stand in solidarity with the Parkland students and their allies who reject the idea that existing gun laws are acceptable. We join their demand for immediate action to make society safer for all, especially for children and youth, by reducing minors’ access to guns and banning assault weapons.

For more than 50 years, Sister Catherine Ferguson has been serving as a Holy Names Sister throughout the world. During her career, Sister Catherine, who has served in SNJM leadership, also taught high school in both Oregon and Washington, researched Christian base communities in Latin America, received her doctoral degree in International Studies and founded and coordinated UNANIMA International, an NGO doing advocacy at the United Nations.

This spring, Sister Catherine will take on a new role as a board member of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby. NETWORK’s mission is to transform social and economic inequalities in the U.S. by working for just wages, quality healthcare, protecting the rights of immigrants and assuring affordable housing for all. NETWORK’s mission is grounded in Scripture, Catholic social teaching and lived realities. It seeks justice by advocating for federal policies consistent with Gospel values.

Sister Catherine and other NETWORK board members will serve on both the NETWORK advocacy board and NETWORK lobby board starting in April. In this capacity the board members ensure that NETWORK fulfills its mission and maintains a sustainable organization.

In explaining her desire to serve on the NETWORK board, Sister Catherine said, “I am excited to be connected firsthand with NETWORK and its creative and effective work of advocacy at the federal level. Remember its NUNS ON THE BUS campaign? It is so important that we ordinary citizens tell our elected representatives what we want of our government and assure that its policies and actions are truly for the common good and not just for the good of those who are wealthy. I have always wanted to be involved in advocacy at the national level.”

With her many years of experience working as an advocate on the international level, Sister Catherine is ready for the new opportunity to advocate domestically. “Right now I think NETWORK will be advocating especially for immigrants,” she said. She also identified other important issues such as affordable healthcare, creation of jobs and the development of a federal budget which responds to the needs of the country and fulfills our obligations to the international community.

Sister Catherine’s interest in advocacy is driven by the core Gospel values that motivate all Sisters of the Holy Names in their prayer and ministry. These values are succinctly expressed in the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

More information about NETWORK can be found at https://networklobby.org.

As women religious committed to Christ’s saving path of peace and mercy, we implore U.S. lawmakers to do everything in their power to stop the carnage of mass shootings that have ended so many lives and broken so many hearts. Of course, we pray for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting and their loved ones. But as we face the continued epidemic of gun violence in the U.S., we must work to find a common commitment to action as well as prayer.

Following the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016, Pope Francis expressed his “deepest feelings of horror and condemnation.” The Vatican’s call for meaningful change to end “such terrible and absurd violence” reflects strong Catholic social teaching on providing witness on behalf of a culture of life. Surely we can agree on the supreme value of legislation that makes our society a safer place for all.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called on Catholics and all people of good will to urge their Senators and Representative to adopt “reasonable regulations on firearms” and other measures to reduce criminal and violent activity through restorative justice. Therefore we call on Congress to reject measures that would make Americans less safe, including these proposed measures:

• The SHARE Act (H.R. 3668), which would repeal restrictions on gun silencers and make it harder to detect the source of gunfire during mass shootings.
• The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38), which would force states to recognize concealed carry permits issued by any other state.

We also encourage the Republican majority in both houses of Congress to sponsor a bill to outlaw the selling of “bump stocks” that make assault rifles into automatic machine-like guns capable of releasing as many as 100 bullets in nine seconds. The guns used to kill victims in Las Vegas were equipped with these legal attachments.

Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary
U.S.-Ontario Province Leadership Team
Maureen Delaney, SNJM
Mary Breiling, SNJM
Guadalupe Guajardo, SNJM
Margaret Kennedy, SNJM
Mary Rita Rohde, SNJM

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, U.S.-Ontario Province join with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other organizations outraged at today’s announcement, in expressing our deep sadness and disappointment that President Trump chose to discontinue protection of our 800,000 Dreamers through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

While we understand that Congress has several other tasks to attend to this session, because the window of opportunity is limited to six months, we urge Congress to take steps immediately to pass the bipartisan Dream Act of 2017. The Dreamers are integral to our society as members of our families, our neighbors, our students and friends. How can we stand by and watch them be expelled, banished to countries foreign to them? They are talented teachers in our schools, competent and compassionate caregivers in our retirement communities, our colleagues and employees. It is impossible to imagine our schools, local hotels, restaurants and businesses, our healthcare systems, armed services and first responders in emergencies without their leadership and skilled commitment.

Will we simply turn our heads in the face of another blatant decision supporting racism?

We strongly encourage all people committed to justice and respect for and love of neighbor to contact your congresspersons to urge them to ensure that the Dream Act of 2017 becomes law, write letters to editors and also join with others in prayer services and in local demonstrations in support of the 800,000 Dreamers and the Dream Act of 2017.

As Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of the US Ontario Province, a community of over 430 Catholic women religious, we are committed to respect for every person and justice for all.  As Christian citizens we are outraged by what occurred in Charlottesville, VA last weekend and dismayed by the menacing comments, violence, physical attacks and senseless loss of life perpetrated by the racist rally.

We appreciate the leadership shown by the statements of the mayor and governor in response to the event.

We call on our president, and all leaders, to exert moral leadership by refraining from hateful and discriminatory speech and actions.

We join our prayers with those of other concerned citizens and members of many faiths in opposition to this violent action, so contrary to the values of our nation.  We urge all to work for the healing and reconciliation taught and lived by Jesus and so necessary for peace and justice in our country.

Nearly 60 students received diplomas or GED certificates as Next Step Learning Center celebrated its graduation and National Adult Honor Society induction on July 27 in Oakland, CA. It was an especially satisfying day for the two Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary who co-directed the center for more than two decades.

Sisters Cynthia Canning and Rosemary Delaney were among those who applauded the graduates, who included eight community college graduates, and the nine students who were inducted into the honor society. “It was wonderful to witness this milestone for people who have most likely never been recognized before for any accomplishment. They have demonstrated true grit and stayed the course,” they said.

L-R: Sister Rosemary Delaney, NSLC graduate Cha’Shonn and Sister Cynthia Canning.

One student named Cha’Shonn said, “I left Next Step but came back; I left again, but came back; I left again and came back and stayed, got my GED, just earned my AA at Merritt Community College, and am enrolled at San Francisco State where I will start in August.”

“The spirit of Next Step got inside of me and carried me through to earn my GED and finish what I started to do at many other programs,” said another student. A third student commented, “Being at Next Step is about more than reading and studies; it’s about continuing on with your life path after getting off track.” And a fourth student added, “There are angels at Next Step who work with you as tutors.”

Melinda, who is a long-time Next Step volunteer, shared these thoughts: “Couldn’t you tell from the crowded parking lot and balloons that we were about to experience a wonderful afternoon? As soon as I parked my car, I began to see graduates posing for photos in their caps and gowns, grinning despite themselves. Inside the gym was another story: live music from the guitar and drums duo, little kids, seniors, even infants all there to witness a grad, tutors galore and Next Step staff. I found one of the few remaining empty chairs and sat between a woman whose fiancé was graduating and another woman who was cheering for two nephews. The formal program began with Elgar’s familiar ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ as the graduates marched in. From then on, we were treated to wise words from Next Step staff, words of support and encouragement and pride in all that had been accomplished. Interspersed, as noted on the program, were prepared speeches by selected students. Their sentiments were echoed, one after another, by the graduates. I couldn’t count how many versions of ‘thankful,’ ‘patience,’ ‘persistence’ and ‘supported’ were expressed. Not surprisingly, those very same descriptors seemed to fit many in the crowd, tutors included. Next Step rocked!”

The Sisters of the Holy Names founded Next Step as an adult literacy program in 1994 to address the high dropout rate in Oakland. It brings together participants pursuing educational and life goals with more than 70 volunteer tutors. Sisters Cynthia and Rosemary led the center until last year, when Lisa Stringer became its executive director.