Claiming both parts of the story

Sister Rejane  
This Random Nun Clip is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. I'm Sister Rejane of A Nun's Life Ministry. And our guest today is Sister Mary Pellegrino, Senior Vice President of Plante Moran consulting firm. Mary and her consultant team work to ensure that religious institutes realize their potential and meet the challenges of the day through the lens of their mission and charism. If you had to pick an accomplishment that you are proud of, during your time at LCWR, is there one you could point to?

Sister Mary  
Oh, wow.

Sister Rejane  
That might be too hard.

Sister Mary  
No, I can, I can. I think the thing that I would say that I'm most proud of is that for the assembly in 2016--I think it was 16--we were able to bring Dr. Shannen Dee Williams to the assembly to speak about her research of black Catholic Sisters in the United States and the experience of racism and white supremacy. And just to hear her the quality of her research and the much truer narrative that is created about religious life in this country really set the conference, LCWR, and many of our communities on a trajectory toward racial healing, and racial reconciliation. And I think that was a watershed moment. It came out of my own experience of being in office, in my own community--in leadership in my community--and learning that we had rejected a woman in 1960 because of her race. And I learned that through Dr. Williams' research. And that woman, whom we rejected, went on to enter the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh, and she founded the National Black Sisters Conference. That constellation of events and sequence of events, for me, really shaped how I went into the presidency of LCWR. When we had an opportunity to consider what will be our justice action--because we always have one at an assembly--we were talking about let's do an action around racism. And I remember saying, "I don't know that we can, with any credibility, really advocate for the eradication of racism outside of ourselves, unless we're really willing to see this inside of ourselves." And so we were able to bring Dr. Williams to that assembly. And I think that, like I said, it was just a watershed moment for many of our communities in the conference, and a watershed moment for the conference itself.

Sister Rejane  
Wow. You know, I'm really glad you brought that up--and that that phrase you said, the credibility to eradicate racism outside of ourselves, when you first have to look in our past and our history.

Sister Mary  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
Right? And I think we see that kind of playing out now within our US society.

Sister Mary  
Yes. Yes.

Sister Rejane  
As a staff of A Nun's Life, we're reading Father Horan's book, a White Catholic's Guide to Racism.

Sister Mary  
Oh, right.

Sister Rejane  
There's a whole chapter on what has been the stance of the Catholic Church, from the Vatican to different conferences of bishops around the world, including our own--

Sister Mary  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
--in the US. Father Bryan Massengale is quoted very often in there about, the credibility is to look inside.

Sister Mary  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
And what is our culpability? What have we done?

Sister Mary  
Exactly, exactly. And I'm reading right now--if I can do a shameless plug--

Sister Rejane  
Please do!

Sister Mary  
My community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh are sponsoring a book launch event for Dr. Williams' book, Subversive Habits. So I'm reading that book right now. And I highly recommend it. Very similar to what you're describing, what Dan is talking about, is that we just have a false narrative, historically, about the church's engagement. I think there's an assumption that the church was not complicit in slave trade, or in colonization. And I think what we're finding and what we know now is that that's not true. And how is it that we tell a more truthful narrative? How can we really reclaim the truth of the past? And I think what we're seeing in this country around the opposition to teaching accurate history and politicizing the critical race theory--I just think that is such a dangerous road for a nation to go down, when we are unwilling to really claim the truth of our history.

Sister Rejane  
And it's painful. It's painful to go inside. And maybe I didn't do something, but let's say my grandparents did.

Sister Mary  
Right, right.

Sister Rejane  
And I heard that story. And I need to claim it. It's part of who I am. It's generational.

Sister Mary  
Right. It is generational. And that's so true, Rejane. I know when I first learned that we had denied entrance to this young woman, Patricia Grey, I read it in an email. Because one of our sisters had gone to London, to a conference that that Dr. Williams was speaking at. And she said this in her workshop, that Patricia Grey was denied entrance to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden. And one of my sisters was there. Sally, who is an archivist and a historian, she went up to talk to Dr. Williams and said, "I am a sister of St. Joseph of Baden. I didn't know that." And so Sally emailed me, and I remember just sitting at my desk, reading this, over and over, I had to read it over and over. 1960, rejected a black woman because her race. And I just remember being so ashamed by that, and at the same time feeling this urgency that I had to do something about it. Like, I didn't do that personally, I wasn't involved personally, but my community had done that. And I represent our community. And so that really was a profound moment for me--to just acknowledge that we have to acknowledge this somehow, because we have a narrative that we were very engaged in supporting the civil rights movement, and we were. And at the same time, we rejected this woman because of her race.

Sister Rejane  
But both have to be claimed, right? Both parts of the story have to be claimed to be authentic.

Sister Mary  
Yes, we're sin in grace and that is what God works with. Not one or the other, but everything.

Sister Rejane  
To hear full episodes of A Nun's Life podcasts, visit the podcast page at anunslife.org/podcasts.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.