‘To
Take Up Our Work in the World’
By Schuyler Clemente ’07
After graduating from Smith
in 1905, Mary Josephine (Mollie) Rogers went on to
become Mother Mary Joseph, the founder of the highly
acclaimed order of Catholic nuns dedicated to worldwide
foreign mission. Photo courtesy of the Maryknoll Sisters. |
In 1905, a
Smith College graduate named Mollie Rogers wrote to her high
school newspaper: “We leave college with a sense of self-reliance
and responsibility to take up our work in the world.” Little did
Rogers know how far-reaching her work would be as she went
on to become Mother Mary Joseph and the founder of the Maryknoll Sisters -- the
first order of Catholic nuns in the United States dedicated
to foreign mission.
To commemorate the centennial of Rogers’ graduation,
the Helen Hills Hills Chapel and the Newman Association,
a Catholic student organization, teamed up with the Kahn Liberal Arts
Institute to sponsor a symposium on Mollie Rogers this past February.
According
to Catholic Chaplain Elizabeth Carr, one of the organizers
of the symposium, “Mollie
Rogers had the inspiration to [found the order] when she
was a student at Smith.…She felt that women who went to mission
should do the same thing priests could do.”
Michele Chapdelaine ’07,
chair of the Mollie Rogers Centennial Celebration Committee and member of
the Newman Association, explains the connection to the Kahn Institute’s
yearlong project Biotechnology and World Health. “The
Maryknoll Sisters do a lot of work in communities with high rates of HIV/AIDS.”
Maryknoll
Sister Dr. Mary Annel, M.M., delivered the keynote address, titled “HIV/AIDS:
Reconsidering Sexuality and Cultural Norms.” Sister Dr. Annel lives
in El Salvador and works in AIDS prevention and in ministry with those
who suffer from AIDS. She discussed the culture of El Salvador and how
cultural views and mores have contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS among
the population, and what the Maryknoll Sisters are doing to try and lessen
its impact.
“We have to know our church and try
to help insert it into today’s
reality.…We the people are our church,” said Sister Dr.
Annel. “We
try to help people make life decisions from a basis of knowledge, not
ignorance.”
Emilee Mooney ’05 attended the keynote
address. “I
was really delighted to find there is a place in the Catholic Church
for AIDS outreach,” she
maintains. “This is not what I learned in CCD” (religious
education classes).
The symposium included a panel on “HIV/AIDS
Prevention and Treatment: Who Gets Access?” which was moderated
by Sister Dr. Annel. Christine White-Ziegler, Kahn faculty fellow
and assistant professor of biological sciences, sat on the panel,
along with Susan Weissert, Maryknoll AIDS Task Force coordinator,
and Avette J. Richards AC.
Chapdelaine felt that it was fitting
for this event to be held at Smith. “It’s
important because Mollie Rogers was a Smith graduate, and I would
say she’s
probably one of the most worldwide influential graduates.”
The
Maryknoll Sisters have redefined what was classically known
as “mission
work,” Chapdelaine adds. “They’re not as
interested in imposing their faith as they are in helping communities
to grow in their own cultural context.”
The “fire” that
inspired Mollie Rogers continues in Smith students today,
according to Carr. “The students who are here now continue
the tradition of women having an education and using that
education for the well-being of people in the world.”
“Mollie
Rogers created an order of women to be equal to men, which certainly
fits with the mission of Smith College,” continues Carr. “They
certainly are a perennial blessing to the world, literally.”
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