News

Sisters need our support

By Joanne Flemming
Compass Correspondent

	STILL SERVING: Retired Srs. Christine Martell (sitting) and Lillian Martell continue to serve the community. (Dick Meyer photo)

Catholics across the Green Bay Diocese will be invited at liturgies this weekend to give back to the religious who served them in schools and parishes by contributing to the National Retirement Fund for Religious.

Last year, diocesan Catholics gave $421,326, said Sr. Mary Jo Kirt, OSF, diocesan fund coordinator. "Of all the dioceses in the United States, per person we are one of the highest in contributions."

Funds are sent to the national office in Washington, D.C. Communities then apply to the fund for gifts and grants, which are given based on income and the ratio of retired to total members. Some 90% of what is collected is returned to women's and men's religious communities across the country to help support their retired members.

The Green Bay Diocese has about 300 retired religious, Sr. Kirt said, but many who served here no longer live here.

One reason people are asked to give to the fund, she said, is that "the cost of health care is rising. Communities who have not saved money because they didn't have any money are having a harder and harder time paying for health care for their sisters."

Both Sr. Kirt and Sr. Jeanine Retzer, SSM, assistant provincial and treasurer for the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother United States/Caribbean Province, Broken Arrow, Okla., said members of religious orders involved primarily in education were poorly paid. Consequently, they were unable "to set aside adequate funds for the time when probably they would have more retired than active sisters," Sr. Retzer said.

Congregations that had hospitals or colleges are not in financial straits like those that taught in grade schools or worked in parishes, Sr. Kirt said.

The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, who own and operate health care facilities, such as Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh, have not used the retirement fund because "we've had good financial planning in the past, but that doesn't mean we will never need it," Sr. Retzer said. She has spoken in parishes about the need for the fund and has urged support for it.

Srs. Lillian and Christina Martell, SSM, Appleton, agreed with Sr. Retzer. The 81-year-old twins continue to serve in retirement. Sr. Lillian teaches Italian two days a week at Appleton's Thompson Community Center and tutors Hispanic youth and adults who are learning to read English.

Sr. Christina is her sister's driver and does any computer work the Italian classes require. In her spare time she works on genealogy.

The Menasha natives attended St. Patrick Grade School and Menasha High School. After two years at the public school, the late Msgr. Joseph Becker, then pastor of St. Mary Parish, invited them to attend St. Mary's High School. Sr. Lillian went because she had wanted to be a nun since sixth grade.

Sr. Christina stayed at Menasha High because she thought she didn't have a vocation to religious life, then started nurse's training at Mercy Hospital. Inspired by one of the sisters she met there, she decided to join the Sisters of Sorrowful Mother. Sr. Lillian, who was working in Mercy's admissions/finance office, soon followed her.

Sr. Lillian said the community had both schools and hospitals when she entered. She taught in grade schools throughout the United States. In 1969 or 1970, she was elected a general councillor for the order and sent to the motherhouse in Rome, where she stayed for 27 years, teaching in an international school, as well as English as a second language for the Italian Defense Ministry. She also worked for the Palantine Fathers.

Sr. Christina taught for one year, then went to x-ray school and worked for a year as an x-ray technologist before finishing her nursing degree. She has been a nursing home administrator, manager of a home for mentally ill women and a medical transcriptionist at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Appleton, where she retired in 1994.

When she found an ad on the internet for a house across from St. Elizabeth, she phoned Sr. Lillian in Italy to come back to Wisconsin.

Both women receive retirement funds; Sr. Lillian gets a small pension from the Italian government.

They noted the plight of religious communities that were unable to save for their members' retirement years. Sr. Lillian said the younger sisters were expected to work and support the older ones. They did not consider that there might be a time when there would not be enough younger members to provide that support, Sr. Christina said.

Since the collection began in 1988 it has raised nearly $500 million. The U.S. Bishops have extended the collection to 2017.