Sister Theresa Kane, 87, Dies; Challenged Pope on Ordaining Women

Sister Theresa Kane, a Roman Catholic nun who called on her fellow sisters to push for ordination, and who led by example when, while introducing Pope John Paul II during his 1979 visit to the United States, she publicly challenged him to let women serve as priests, died on Aug. 22 in Watchung, N.J. She was 87.

A representative of her order, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, confirmed her death, at a hospice facility, adding that she had been in failing health.

As the president of both the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group representing American nuns, Sister Theresa was chosen to give a welcome address for Pope John Paul II at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

It was John Paul II’s first visit to the United States since assuming the papacy a year earlier. He was entering a rapidly changing landscape of American Catholicism. Ever since the Second Vatican Council called for the church to address itself to the modern world in the 1960s, progressive Catholics had been pushing for change inside and outside its ranks, including a robust conversation about the role of women in the church.

Though orders like the Sisters of Mercy provide thousands of teachers and social workers vital to the church’s mission, nuns are, strictly speaking, considered laypeople and not, as male priests are, ordained members.

Sister Theresa knew that change would be difficult; a few days earlier, in Philadelphia, Pope John Paul II had asserted his strong opposition to the ordination of women.