Sister Theresa was elected president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in 1978. In that capacity, she welcomed Pope John Paul II to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. in 1979 during his first visit to the United States as pontiff.
During her address, she urged the pope to consider the possibility of opening all ministries of the Church to women, remarks which received widespread media coverage.
“Theresa’s ministry was about truth-speaking,” said Sister Susan Sanders, President of the Institute Leadership of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
“Truth-speaking about women’s desire for full inclusion in the Church; and truth-speaking to Church leaders like Pope John Paul II whom she addressed as LCWR president in 1979.
Straightforward and bold as Theresa was, however, she spoke truth as her God and prayer revealed it to her, and not from a place of position or judgment or blame, but from a place of love, respect, humility, and inclusion. For this, many deeply loved and admired her.”
Sister Theresa, born in 1936 to Irish immigrants from County Galway, entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1955 in Tarrytown, New York. She received a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1959 from Manhattanville College, a master’s degree in public administration from New York University in 1986, and a masters in women’s history from Sarah Lawrence College in 1993.
She began her ministry as the finance manager of St. Francis Hospital in Port Jervis, New York, and was named administrator of that institution in 1964. She served for seven years in leadership of the then New York Province of the Sisters of Mercy before being elected President of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of the Union (a union of nine provinces that later joined 16 other Mercy congregations to become the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas) in 1977.
During the 1980s, Sister Theresa served as the campus minister at Our Lady of Victory Academy in Dobbs Ferry, New York and the fiscal director of Mercy Healthcare Center. In 1992 she was named administrator of Mercy College (now Mercy University), and in 1996 became associate professor of behavioral sciences at the school.
She was a founding member of the Intercommunity Center for Justice and Peace in New York, a U.S. representative to the Union of International Superiors General, board member and president of the Washington Office on Latin America, founding member and first vice president of the board of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, and a board member of the National Catholic Reporter, among other roles. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal from Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, and the 1999 National Catholic Leadership Award from Call to Action.
Funeral arrangements are pending.