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PAGE 1A — The Southern Cross, September 12,1985
Mission Co-op
Three Maryknoll Sisters To Visit Diocesan Parishes
The three Maryknoll Sisters who will be visiting the
Diocese of Savannah (September 21-22)for this year’s Mis
sion Cooperative Program have experience in Indonesia,
Guatemala and Peru.
Sister Bernice Kita, of Philadelphia, PA, entered the
Maryknoll Sisters in 1959. She has been working in
Guatemala since 1970.
First assigned to Guatemala City, Sr. Bernice was Direc
tor of a Social Service Center at Villa de Guadalupe. In 1974
she was assigned to San Pedro Necta, Huehuetenango,
where she did pastoral work in three parishes, including
leadership formation and formation of women’s groups.
From 1977-1984 she was involved in general pastoral work
at San Antonio Palopo, where she and one other sister were
responsible for the pastoral care of the people of two towns
and eleven outlying communities.
Working with an Indian parish population. Sr. Bernice
found that she quickly adapted to their world, language and
culture. “My own Christian values have been strengthened
and my own faith deepened through sharing life and friend
ship with a suffering, persecuted people,” she said. “I have
discovered a new face of God among the people of the
Guatemalan highlands.”
Sister Rosemary McCormack, of Long Island, N.Y.,
worked in Lima, Peru, from 1968 - 1985. She served as a
social worker, a pastoral worker and community develop
ment worker, and for two years held the position of
Regional Coordinator for the Maryknoll Sisters in Peru.
Much of her work has been among the squatters’ towns,
set up almost overnight by people seeking work in the city.
Building flimsy shacks on the sand dunes near Lima, they
establish communities which quickly grow to include any
number from about 400 to 1500 families. One of Sr.
Rosemary’s dreams for the squatter community came true
with the establishment of a day care center serving 120
Leadership Project
Ten participants from the Diocese of Savannah attended
a Catholic Administrator Leadership Project in Maggie
Valley, N.C. from July 28 to August 2. The group was com
prised of teachers, a counselor and administrators.
Participants included Mrs. Mary Lou Ennis, Sr. Patricia
Coward, R.S.M., Mrs. Marion Clark, and Mrs. Kathy
Shiflet, all of Macon; Mrs. Jerry Horne, Sr. Donna Marie
Coward, R.S.M., Sr. Susan Harms, R.S.M., Father Albert
Bickerstaff, O.S.B., Ms. Mary Anne Butler and Sr. Lourdes
Sheehan, R.S.M.
Miss Jean Balthrop and Miss Ann Leonard of Nativity of
Our Lord School, Savannah, attended an earlier session of
the project.
The following topics were presented to participants:
faculty religious development; history of Catholic schools;
law and the schools; philosophy implementation; and effec
tive Catholic schools research.
LEADERSHIP PROJECT — Attending from
the Savannah Diocese (1-r) back row: Sr.
Lourdes Sheehan, R.S.M., Mrs. Mary Lou En
nis, Mrs. Jerry Horne, Sr. Patricia Coward,
R.S.M., Father Albert Bickerstaff, O.S.B.
Front row: Mrs. Marion Clark, Mrs. Kathy
Shiflet, Sr. Donna Marie Coward, R.S.M., Miss
Mary Anne Butler, Sr. Susan Harms, R.S.M.
Sr. Bernice Kita
children between the ages of two and six.
Sister Gloria Ruiz, from New York City, began her work
overseas as a lab technologist in Changhua, Taiwan. She
later worked as a technologist at a Maryknoll Hospital in
Hong Kong, where she was also involved in community
health work, in an urban, industrialized, Buddhist environ
ment.
Assigned to Idonesia in 1975, she became the supervisor
of a hospital laboratory, working to improve the quality of
Sister Gloria Ruiz
its operations. The Sisters in Indonesia worked in a Moslem
environment, among the rural poor.
In 1982, Sister Gloria returned to the States, where she is
presently working in mission education and fund raising.
The Maryknoll Sisters, presently number over 1,000,
serve in 24 countries of Asia, Africa, the Central Pacific,
South, Central and North America. Founded in 1912 by
Mary Josephine Rogers, the Maryknoll Sisters’ Congrega
tion has its center at Maryknoll, near Ossining, New York.
Sister Rosemary McCormack
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POPE GREETS SAVANNAHIAN — Pope
John Paul II greets Edwin Beranc of Savannah.
Beranc was present at a papal audience at
Castelgandolfo on his return from attending the
Eucharistic Congress in Nairobi Kenya. (Photo
by Felici)