Extension magazine - Summer 2023

4
Letter from Father Wall
Extension | Summer 2023 5
IN 1910, only five years after
the founding of Catholic
Extension, St. Pope Pius
X issued a decree making
Catholic Extension a society
that would henceforth be
under the protection of the
Holy See.
Ever since then, Catholic
Extension has maintained
a special connection with
the Holy See. That connection
is what brought a recent
Catholic Extension delegation
to Rome, where we had
the great honor to meet with
Vatican leaders, including the
pope himself.
But it was perhaps an
even greater honor to be in
the company of incredible
women leaders in the Church
who were part of our delegation
to Rome, many of whom
are past recipients of Catholic
Extension’s Spirit of Francis
Award and Lumen Christi
Award or are the beneficiaries
of Catholic Extension’s
support.
During our pilgrimage,
these extraordinary women
shared with the Holy See
how they are implementing
Pope Francis’ teachings
through their work with
communities on the peripheries.
These heroic and
exemplary women are each
building the “field hospital”
Church that Pope Francis
frequently speaks of, which
walks in solidarity with the
people whom our culture
and society have deemed disposable.
Some of the women who
Follow the women who
follow the risen Christ
joined us in Rome, and
whose reflections you will
read in this magazine, include:
Sister Norma Pimentel, MJ—
who has provided care to
hundreds of thousands at
the U.S.-Mexico border and
received Catholic Extension’s
Spirit of Francis Award while
in Rome.
Jean Fedigan—who is our
2022-2023 Lumen Christi
Award recipient and the
founder of Sister José Women’s
Center in Tucson, Arizona,
which serves women
who have been trafficked and
experienced violence, homelessness
and hunger.
Sister Clarice Suchy, STJ—
who has responded to victims
of the mass shooting
that left 19 children dead in
Uvalde, Texas in May 2022.
Dozens of religious sisters
in our U.S.-Latin American
Sisters Exchange Program—
whose ministries have
directly touched the lives
of hundreds of thousands
of people throughout our
country.
We fittingly began our pilgrimage
with these and other
honored guests in the Church
of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
Located in the heart of Rome,
it holds the bodily remains
of St. Catherine of Siena,
arguably one of the greatest
women in the history of
Catholicism. Not only does St.
Catherine have the rare distinction
of being a doctor of
the Church (one of only four
women in 2,000 years to hold
such a title), she also helped
save the papacy.
The popes had abandoned
Rome for 70 years. This was
a big problem because part
of what makes a pope the
pope is the fact that he is the
bishop of Rome. But in the
14th century, successive
popes took up their residency
in France, requiring
a no-nonsense woman to
solve this decades-long, international
religious scandal.
During her arduous and ultimately
successful campaign
seeking the pope’s return to
Rome, St. Catherine of Siena
did not mince words, appealing
to his spiritual sensibilities
as much as his masculine
identity.
“I beg of you, on behalf of
Christ crucified,” she pleaded,
“that you be not a timorous
child but manly. Open your
mouth and swallow down the
bitter for the sweet.” She followed
up with this zinger,
after the pope had returned
to Rome but was still second-guessing
his decision:
“Up, father, like a man! For
I tell you that you have no
need to fear.”
St. Catherine’s struggle is
perhaps what the women
of Jerusalem might have felt
when they were trying to
convince the disbelieving
apostles of the resurrection
of Jesus.
On the road to Emmaus,
the apostles could not piece
together the evidence of
Jesus’ resurrection as they
talked through the sequence
of events. They said:
“Some women from
our group, however, have
astounded us: they were
at the tomb early in the
morning and did not find
[Jesus’] body; they came
back and reported that they
had indeed seen a vision of
angels who announced that
he was alive. Then some of
those with us went to the
tomb and found things just
as the women had described,
but him they did not see” (Lk
24:22-24).
The apostles cannot grasp
that which is plainly obvious
to the women. Their stubborn
skepticism on the road
to Emmaus prompts the disguised
Jesus to burst out with
the words: “Oh, how foolish
you are! How slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets
spoke!” (Lk 24:25).
That is why I have always
believed it important to follow
the women who follow
the risen Christ.
In the Gospel stories,
women are the ones who
accompany the suffering
Jesus to the cross while the
other disciples scatter in
fear. They are also the first to
encounter Him as the risen
one and the first to give witness
to his other disciples of
the transformative power of
what God is doing through
His Son for each of us and for
the hope of all humanity.
Today, in many diverse
places, this same paradigm of
“first encounter” is especially
modeled by lay and religious
women of faith, just like the
ones we read about in Scripture,
and just like the women
featured in this magazine
whom we recently introduced
to Pope Francis.
These women are once
again showing us where the
risen Jesus can be found, and
they are patiently waiting for
the rest of us to finally see
Christ with our own eyes.
The women who joined us
in Rome are also like St. Catherine
of Siena, pleading with
the Church to be anchored
in a certain place to maintain
its credibility. Today, the
place that the Church must
not abandon, they tell us, is
its place among the poor and
with those on the peripheries.
Will we listen to the powerful
and prophetic voices of
these women of faith? Will
we follow the women who
lead us to the risen Christ?
Rev. John J. Wall
PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC EXTENSION
Father Jack Wall
stands with our
guests of honor
in Rome. (Left
to right): Sister
Norma Pimentel,
MJ; Jean Fedigan;
Sister Clarice
Suchy, STJ; Sister
Marie-Paule
Willem, FMM;
Father Jack Wall;
Sister Carol
Keehan, DC;
Sister Fatima
Santiago, ICM.;
and Melva
Arbelo.