News

Collection to benefit religious

By Joanne Flemming
Compass Correspondent

As the Green Bay Diocese's representative for religious, Sr. Mary Jo Kirt believes diocesan residents are Wisconsin's most generous contributors to the collection for retired religious because they have "stayed connected" to the religious who have served them throughout their lives.

"The sisters have made a great impact on their lives," she said. "The sisters have become friends with them."

Last year the diocese contributed $360,517 to the fund, according to a report by the National Religious Retirement Office in Washington. D.C. That was even more than the Milwaukee Archdiocese, Sr. Kirt said.

The report said $2,146,215 in grants were returned to religious orders of women and men in Wisconsin.

Despite this generosity, Sr. Kirt said, the collection was down 14% nationally last year while the need was up 20%.

This year's collection will be made at Masses Dec. 13-14.

Staying connected

Sr. Anne Brochtrup, 78, Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity, is an example of a religious who has remained connected to the people of the diocese.

She retired six years ago after 53 years of teaching first graders. She resides at St. Agnes Parish in Green Bay where she takes Communion to and visits with residents of west side Green Bay nursing homes.

She used the word, "retirement," to describe her "change in ministries," although many religious prefer to use the latter phrase. "That's a good way of putting it," she laughed.

The Hollandtown native entered the Manitowoc community when she was a junior in high school. At first she didn't want to be a sister, she said, but the vocation "just kept after me and after me."

While she was still a student at St. Francis School in Hollandtown, one of her teachers asked her if she had considered becoming a sister. Later her confessor asked her the same question.

"It's a pure calling from the Lord," she said. "I decided to follow it, and I've never been sorry."

Last year she celebrated her 60th jubilee.

Sr. Brochtrup said she chose the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity because that was the order that taught at Hollandtown and she wanted to be a teacher.

Taught in four states

She taught in Wisconsin, Arizona, Illinois and Hawaii. She taught first grade, except one year when she taught a combination third and fourth grade and two years in second grade.

First graders were her favorites because they "were so eager to learn. Everything is so new to them. They are eager, so sweet and loving."

She said her classes were often large - 67 students one year.

In the late 1980s, she was teaching in Kekaka, Hawaii, when the Iniki hurricane hit. The people spent the day being evacuated.

"We went to a higher hill ... We saw roofs floating by and everything, but God took care of us. We came home to disaster," she said.

The convent and school were destroyed. "The school was like a giant stepped on it. You looked for a house that wasn't destroyed," she continued.

For the next two years, school was held in barracks and trailers.

Sr. Brochtrup was serving at St. Mary Parish in Kaukauna when she retired. Part of her ministry was at St. Paul Nursing Home.

She recently had a total knee replacement. Cards she received from nursing home residents she serves showed her how much they appreciated her visits. "They long for that visit to just cheer them up. It's a very rewarding ministry."

Urges collection support

Sr. Brochtrup urged support of the collection for retired religious. She is convinced that donors will get what they give "back a hundredfold in one way or another."

Sr. Kirt said the fund is needed because years ago religious served for little or no salaries. She said when she started teaching, she received $30 a month. A third of that went to support a sister in training, another third for a retired sister. The remainder went to her.

Sr. Brochtrup and Sr. Kirt said there were larger numbers of sisters then to support the retired members of their communities. Now vocations are down, and the support is not there. "More than 52% of religious are past age 69," Sr. Kirt said.

Because the religious took no salaries, they "had no Social Security and nothing for retirement," she added.

In the 1960s and 1970s, religious began receiving Social Security. The average annual benefit for a religious is $3,749 as compared to $10,740 for a lay person, Sr. Kirt said.

The biggest need is to cover the rising costs of health care and medicines.

"The services that the religious have done for the church go on," Sr. Kirt concluded, "but we need the help of the laity to live."