Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman, FSGM, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Consecrated Life for more than a dozen years, left this week to begin a new Vatican assignment.She was appointed in mid-January to assist the Vatican with its comprehensive study of institutes of women religious in the United States.
Information will be gathered on nearly 400 U.S. women religious congregations, excluding communities of cloistered nuns.
The visitation will be conducted under the direction of Mother Mary Clare Millea, ASCJ, who was appointed Apostolic Visitator.
Sister Eva-Maria was asked by Mother Mary Clare to serve as her assistant for communications and chief spokesperson for the project.
The study’s purpose is to examine the quality of life for women religious and to strengthen, renew and encourage them in their role in the Church.
Sister Eva-Maria said her assignment "is all so new" that the details have yet to be worked out. This is the first time the Vatican has ever attempted such a visitation of U.S. women religious congregations. She is depending on her experience leading the Office of Consecrated Life and her journalism and communications background to help her in her new role.
"I’m grateful for having 12-plus years here to prepare me to understand how important the visitation is," Sister Eva-Maria said.
"I’ve learned a lot from religious, and I’ve been inspired by the generosity and dedication of so many and their witness. I’ve seen how even more important religious life is for the Church, and therefore an initiative like the one that is going to be taking place, with its intended goal of renewing the life of women religious, will only strengthen the Church. Religious life is really a gift in the heart of the Church, and the stronger, the more vibrant religious life is, the more vibrant the life of the Church."
Added the nun, "I am in awe of what women religious have been able to do despite declining numbers and a higher median age. The communities are still vibrant in a lot of ways, but all of us can grow and renew with great energy. Nothing is impossible with God in this regard."
Sister Eva-Maria’s new position will require extensive travel, but her home base will remain at her order’s Provincial House in Alton, Ill.
The Houston native will have been a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George 30 years this August.
Several of the community’s members minister in archdiocesan offices, at the archbishop’s residence in the Central West End, Mother of Good Counsel Home in Normandy and St. Alban Roe Parish in Wildwood.
Sister Eva Maria said she had met "many very dedicated men and women" in her interaction with the leadership of the 60-plus congregations of men and women religious in the archdiocese since first coming to work for the archdiocese in 1996.
Among her responsibilities, she helped plan the gatherings between the state’s bishops and the congregation’s major superiors and coordinated the annual Consecrated Life Mass.
The Mass, she said, "provided an opportunity to recognize the variety of charisms and spiritualities that have manifested the treasure that religious life is in the Church here."
She also was proud that during her time here she helped to organize two major prayer initiatives with contemplative nuns. The first was an archdiocesan prayer request website, which dates back to 1999 and involves the archdiocese’s seven cloistered orders and the Poor Clares of Belleville, Ill.
The other effort, the contemplative nuns prayer initiative, began in 2000.
Contemplative nuns are assigned a seminarian to pray for throughout his years of training at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary.
Both prayer efforts have been tremendous blessings, particularly for the entire Kenrick-Glennon Seminary community, Sister Eva-Maria said.
It has been a blessing for her to have helped coordinate the yearly retirement campaign for religious in the archdiocese, she continued. The generosity of the laypeople who have made this such a successful annual drive "has shown how much the Catholic people really love the sisters, priests and brothers. It’s been a real concrete way for the Catholic people to say thank you."
It also has been a joy for her to help promote vocations, she said, and to work with young people to assist them to discern their vocation.
During her tenure here, Sister Eva-Maria helped establish three new religious communities in the archdiocese: the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart, who work with Paul VI Institute and conduct retreats; the Congregation of the Carmelite Religious of Trivandrum, India, who work at St. John the Baptist School and Kenrick-Glennon Seminary; and the Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, who work at Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center.
Sister Eva-Maria said she was "really going to miss everyone" in the archdiocese and would keep them in her prayers.
She especially wanted "to thank the religious for all they have done."
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