Saint Joseph Academy Celebrates Women’s History Month and Catholic Sisters Week

Anna Khuri ’23, Theresa (Tacy) Kratt ’23 (daughter of Catherine Waters Kratt '87) and Mary Lepore ’22 participated in the webinar and other students, faculty and staff were able to take part through their classroom SmartBoards and computers. In an intimate and informal conversation, students asked Sister Helen questions about what led her to pursue her life’s work as a Sister of the Congregation of St. Joseph and what sustains her and gives her hope.

 

“The conversation with Sister Helen was so interesting and insightful - she has a very special spirit and ability to communicate our call, as people of faith, to advocate for justice and the dignity of human life in every circumstance. She stated that ’hope is a verb’, and this phrase and the stories and explanations she shared will stay with me,” said student panelist Tacy Kratt. Anna Khuri said that this idea stuck with her as well: “one thing I really took away from this discussion is that hope is an active verb, meaning by doing things to work for social justice, we are the hope of the future.”

 

Sister Helen Prejean is known worldwide for her forty years of ministry to prisoners on death row and her work to abolish the death penalty while promoting restorative justice for victims. She has written several books on her experiences, including Dead Man Walking, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie and a stage play that was performed at Saint Joseph Academy.

 

She is a 1957 graduate of our sister school, St. Joseph’s Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1958. After experiencing an awakening to the social significance of the Gospel of Jesus, she became active in ministries to the poor and marginalized. Her work has been instrumental in both legislative reform and the revision of the Catholic Catechism on the death penalty.