To celebrate Catholic Sisters Week this year, we are spotlighting 5 change-making Catholic sisters who lead outstanding ministries in America amid some of the most difficult circumstances.
Catholic sisters are on the frontlines of providing spiritual and physical aid to the poor and marginalized. In the United States, their collective work reaches into every corner of society. In the poorest regions of America, their life-changing service is at its most essential, though their work often goes unseen.
Although these sisters have no shortage of energy, they are often challenged by limited financial resources, hindering their ability to fulfill their vital work. Catholic Extension Society supports their ministries. We partner with Catholic sisters to help them to fully realize their transformative missions.
Here are 5 Catholic sisters whose ministries are changing lives in America’s poorest regions:
1. Sister Maryud Cortés supervises a life-changing program that educates Catholic sisters and transforms the lives of thousands disadvantaged Hispanic families.
As a child, Sister Maryud Cortés just wanted to get an education. But she contracted a spinal infection as an infant that left her unable to walk—and therefore, unable to attend school in the highlands of Colombia.
Today, she has a Ph.D. and is a leader in a program that is changing tens of thousands of lives among Hispanic communities in the United States.
After she was began to walk at 9 years old—a miracle she credits to the Virgin Mary—Sister Maryud worked hard to catch up on her schooling. In high school, she felt called to join the Missionary Servants of the Divine Spirit.
She took her final vows in 2014, and in the same year joined Catholic Extension Society’s newly established U.S. Latin American Sisters Exchange Program, supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. This program brings Catholic sisters from Latin America to the United States to provide them higher education and leadership opportunities while they minister to and develop the human potential of disadvantaged Hispanic communities.
While in the program, Sister Maryud earned a degree in applied leadership from Boston College while also serving migrant farmworker families in southwest Michigan. She then obtained a doctorate in psychology with a specialization in women leadership.
Sister Maryud joined Catholic Extension Society’s accompaniment team to support new sisters in the program as they navigate their ministries and complete their bachelor’s or master’s degrees from St. Mary’s University in Minnesota. She is an instrumental asset to the program’s success as it continues to grow.
2. Sister Kathy Radich dedicates decades to uplifting native communities in the Alaskan “Bush”
When Sister Kathy Radich, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, stepped off the plane in Alaska more than 30 years ago, she never looked back.
She served in Juneau and Anchorage for nine years. In 1997, she moved further north still to serve in the Alaskan “Bush” in the Diocese of Fairbanks, the geographically the largest diocese in the United States. She is the coordinator of rural ministries for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region, which is home to 24 parishes in the Diocese of Fairbanks.
“Rural” means something different in Alaska. Most of the state’s villages, which are home to the indigenous Yup’ik people, are inaccessible by road. The diocese does not have enough priests to remain in each parish, which are spread apart by incredibly vast distances.
Sister Kathy coordinates priest visits to the villages so the faithful can celebrate Mass every few weeks or months. She journeys with the Yup’ik people who “have kept the Church alive” without the consistent presence of a pastor. She trains the local deacons, eucharistic ministers and lay leaders in these extremely isolated villages to conduct Communion services and provide pastoral care, enabling them to strengthen faith within their communities.
She routinely hops on a snowmobile or boards a two-seater plane to go out and visit the faithful of this region. Catholic Extension Society supports her salary and travel costs.
3. Sister Yelitza Ayala Gilot enables the youth and elderly to embrace their potential in Puerto Rico
Guánica, Puerto Rico, is out of the way for anyone visiting the island as a tourist. The area was devastated by an earthquake in 2020—a tragedy among many that includes Hurricane Maria, the pandemic and an economic recession.
But this town is home to the ever-joyful Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima and their abundant smiles, optimism and words of encouragement for all members of the community. At the core of their ministry is a center dedicated to uplifting families.
Sister Yelitza Ayala Gilot is the director of the center.
Sister Yelitza joined Catholic Extension Society’s U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program in 2014. While in the program, she took her final vows. She developed as a leader through her ministry in Texas and the master’s degree in applied leadership that she earned from Boston College.
After she completed the program, she returned to Puerto Rico. As director of the center, called “The Special Institute for Integral Development of the Individual, Family and Community,” she oversees a massive effort to strengthen the families in Guánica.
The center, which is supported by Catholic Extension Society, offers free services including health and mental health services, educational workshops, vocational courses, and initiatives that provide people opportunities to start their own business.
The center pays special attention to the children and the elderly. The children learn they are intelligent, important and loved. Sister Yelitza and the sisters invite the elderly to volunteer, which invigorates their spirits and strengthens community bonds.
Sister Yelitza said she is grateful for the education and skills she received through the USLASEP program, which have allowed her to be well prepared to run the center.
4. Sister Kathleen Atkinson welcomes released prisoners and helps them transition back into society in North Dakota
Ten years ago, Benedictine Sister Kathleen Atkinson heard what she thought was good news: one her Bible study participants at North Dakota State Penitentiary was going to be released.
He told her he was terrified.
After four years in prison, he didn’t know how to walk into the unfamiliar city of Bismarck and build a life from scratch.
When he was released the next week, she met him outside the gates.
She bought him a meal and essential living supplies. She helped him find an apartment and a job. She enabled him to start a new life.
The experience prompted Sister Kathleen to found Ministry on the Margins to give released prisoners both the resources and moral support to transition back into society. Sister Kathleen helps them to understand that even if their past may not have reflected the best of themselves, God is merciful and God’s grace is more powerful than the forces that have held them back.
In 2021, her eye-opening experience in a Catholic Extension Society prison ministry program helped her advocate for a powerful new restorative justice law in North Dakota.
5. Sister Fatima Santiago empowers women in poor Texas “colonia”
In 2003, Sister Fatima Santiago, a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, arrived the “colonia” of Pueblo de Palmas. A colonia is a geographic area located within 150 miles of the Texas-Mexico border in which most people live on low and very low income. These families lack safe, sanitary and sound housing and are without basic services such as potable water, adequate sewage systems, drainage, utilities, and paved roads.
Where other some might see inescapable poverty, Sister Fatima saw potential.
Together with two other sisters in her order, they developed Proyecto Desarrollo Humano, an outreach center devoted to building faith in the community and to helping people collectively tackle their challenges. It offers a thrift store, community garden, medical clinic, after school programs, exercise classes and much more. Catholic Extension Society has supported Proyecto Desarrollo Humano since its founding.
The center has been especially empowering for women in the community. Here, they have found a place that affirms their God-given abilities.
When Mass at the center began to overflow, the sisters set to work on building a church. St. Anne’s Church was constructed in 2009 in the middle of the community.
The three sisters received Catholic Extension Society’s Lumen Christi Award in 2014. The award is our highest honor, given to people to radiate and reveal the light of Christ in the communities they serve.
The sisters recently built an even larger church nearby to serve the growing faithful community, and are now expanding Proyecto Desarrollo Humano to serve yet another colonia with great need.
Sister Fatima also joined our Board of Governors in this year. In this role, she helps Catholic Extension Society advance our mission to build up vibrant and transformative faith communities.
“Once people here become aware that a better life is possible, they are determined to work hard,” she said.
These 5 sisters are just a handful of the hundreds of Catholic sisters that Catholic Extension Society supports every day. We are dedicated to ensuring their ministries not only continue, but strengthen and expand to better serve communities in need.
We can’t do it without you! Please consider helping Catholic sisters like these by supporting our mission today.
