Presentation Sisters leave behind legacy of service to diocese

By Nancy Westlund
Herald staff

They came to the Sacramento Diocese 41 years ago, to share their talents as educators and to be about the business of caring for the poor.

Four members of the Sisters of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary arrived in Sacramento from their motherhouse in Cork, Ireland, to serve at Presentation Parish in 1961. Four more would arrive at St. Mary Parish eight years later.

The late Bishop Joseph T. McGucken had invited the Presentation Sisters to teach in the diocese.

In July, the three Presentation Sisters who remain today will leave behind a legacy of faith lived out in parish communities and the greater Sacramento area.

The departure comes as the congregation is disengaged from the diocese as part of a consolidation process.

For Sister Maureen Skelly, who was assigned to teach at St. Mary School first in 1969, and then returned to teach again this past school year, its life come full circle.

“I was one of the first to come to St. Mary’s School and now I will be one of the last to leave,” she said. “I’ll be sad to leave, but I feel a good solid Catholic education is going on, and my going won’t change that in any way.”

Sister Skelly taught children in schools from Africa and India to Southern California before her arrival at St. Mary’s. It was while on a six-month vacation from an assignment in India that her order requested she work on a short-term basis at St. Mary School.

As it turned out, Sister Skelly stayed on and discovered she “liked the people ever so much.”

When she returned to St. Mary’s classrooms last year, after serving in another diocese, she found once again “a friendly, accepting school community.”

Colleen Nicholas, who works as the librarian at St. Mary’s, said that staff members are saddened at the thought of saying goodbye to nuns like Sister Skelly.

“It’s a great loss to this school,” said Nicholas, whose son had Sister Skelly as his fourth grade teacher. “They have been very dedicated, compassionate, and had an impact on the whole community.”

Sister Skelly has been assigned to teach at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Montclair, Calif., in the fall.

Sister Eileen Howley, who celebrated her golden jubilee in 2001, taught at St. Mary School from 1970 to 1984. Like Sister Skelly, she served for many years as a teacher in India where she discovered she was “always happy teaching, helping children along, growing morally and educationally.”

Other Catholic school teaching assignments took her to Globe, Ariz., and San Antonio, Texas.

“My life is like a gypsy’s,” she laughed, reflecting on varied assignment locations prior to her retirement to St. Mary’s Convent two years ago.

Sister Howley said the third and fourth graders at St. Mary School will always have a special place in her heart.

“I love St. Mary’s—the students and their parents who were very supportive and appreciative of what we did for them,” she said.

In recent years Sister Howley has enjoyed visiting many friends and neighbors and maintaining St. Mary’s Convent, which has so long been home.

When Sister Maria Fitzgerald leaves Sacramento this month, she will leave behind a community of people who found their way into her heart and never let go. Since her arrival in the diocese in 1990, Sister Fitzgerald has worked at Loaves & Fishes, a private interfaith charity that serves the homeless in Sacramento.

She founded Loaves & Fishes jail visitation program, was appointed a member of the charity’s board of directors, and became its first development director, a position she currently holds. She has brought the message of the plight of the homeless to over 650 churches and community organizations over the past three years.

“Sister Fitzgerald really brings the essence of our ministry to people in a very personal way,” said Tim Brown, executive director of Loaves & Fishes. “She’s a prophetic speaker, has probably done more outreach than anyone, and leaves a legacy of incredible work here.”

“Being about the poor in some way,” is what Sister Fitzgerald has been doing since taking her first vows as a woman religious in 1959. She worked first as a Catholic schools educator for 17 years in a very poor parish in Globe, Ariz., and later in Southern California. By the time she arrived at Loaves & Fishes, she had found her calling.

“It seemed evident working among the people (at Loaves & Fishes) that I couldn’t leave the poor. They found their way into my life,” she said. “There was a pull there.”

Besides taking a powerful message about the ministry of Loaves & Fishes throughout the greater Sacramento area, Sister Fitzgerald has empowered others to carry on her work. Volunteers are in place to continue the jail ministry program she started, and to meet with the crocheting class she began with homeless women.

“Sister Fitzgerald brought a lot of love to our guests and a sensitivity to their needs, always putting their needs first,” said Chris Delany, founding member and chair of Loaves & Fishes’ board of directors. “She used all her gifts for the poor.”

It is of no surprise that the spirited nun who never failed to lift up those in need will continue that same ministry in Ireland.

“I will be researching the social services systems in Ireland,” Sister Fitzgerald said. “I will go on giving my best with the materially poor.”

Dominican Sister Maureen McInerney, former co-vocations director for the diocese, said that the 41 years of ministry given by the Presentation Sisters to families, parish and school communities, and the poor is a loss.

“Even when they became few in number, they served not only the Catholic community, but the community in general,” Sister McInerney said. “They made a tremendous contribution to God’s people in Sacramento.”

Father Arnold Ortiz, pastor of St. Mary’s, who has worked closely with the Presentation Sisters over the past 15 years, also said they will be greatly missed.

“To have the witness of these gracious, loving, dedicated ladies among us…giving their whole heart to our children, is a wonderful gift that we’ve enjoyed for 33 years,” he said.

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