Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Mary Daniel Turner, a driving force for justice and church renewal before and after the Second Vatican Council, and the executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious from 1972-78, died peacefully Jan. 27 at the Sanctuary at Holy Cross care center in Burtonsville, MD. She was 84.
Widely respected for her thought and leadership, Turner was co-author, with Sister of Divine Providence Lora Ann Quinonez, of “The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters (Women in the Political Economy) (Temple University Press, 1992). For six decades, she was a tireless advocate for women, including women religious.
In an August, 2009, interview with NCR Editor Tom Fox, the gentle but frequently provocative Turner lamented that Vatican clerics cannot accept women religious as moral agents. "At the heart it is hard for Rome to understand us a moral agents in our own right," she said.
Speaking about the current Vatican-inspired Apostolic Visitation of U.S. women religious congregations, she said, "I think the issues are wider than women religious. The issues have to do with with whole church. I hate to see this reduced to religious life. It's deeper than that. It's really a difference in values between the church of Rome and the U.S. church."
This investigation is not simply about the way sisters are living. It has to do with issues that are far wider. A wider number of laity are asking the same questions we are. Deep down, the central question is 'who are we, as Catholics, in a pluralistic society.'"
Turner went on to say that "a democratic spirit lives in our [American] bones and it has to do with the inviolabilty of each person." Church structures, she said, must promote this. Americans, she said, "look for processes that honor the common good and promote the individual."
Turner received the LCWR Outstanding Leadership Award in 2005.
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Ministry of Sr. Mary Daniel Turner
Click here to see her remarks upon receiving the Outstanding Leadership award:
Click here to see Turner remarks upon receiving the Mary Emil Penet award.
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The following are appreciations by past LCWR president, Mercy Sister Camille D’Arienzo, and current LCWR president, Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration Marlene Weisenbeck.
By Sister Camille D’Arienzo
The passing from our midst of Sister Mary Daniel Turner represents the extinguishing of a leading light for U.S. women religious and countless others whose faith formation she enriched through her spoken and written presentations. Her influence, however, will remain as gift and grace for those of us who knew and loved her.
I had the privilege of visiting her at the Sanctuary at Holy Cross care center where she spent her last days. Mercy Sister Pat Kenny kindly took me to see Mary Daniel on Jan. 15, the morning after the Smithsonian Institute’s opening of the magnificent “Women in Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” exhibit. This display recaptures the stories of numerous religious communities, dating back to the 18th century.
The exhibit demonstrates how so many courageous women traveled from foreign countries to bring the Catholic faith and the works of mercy to what was becoming the United States of America. In so doing, they shaped and enriched the nation’s cultural and social history through pioneering in cities and suburbs and enduring the travails of war, bigotry and poverty.
Until the day of the opening, Mary Daniel had hoped to regain enough strength to see for herself what had been created by Blessed Virgin Mary Sister Helen Maher Garvey and her colleagues, many from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. She was vitally interested in what we had to tell her about the exhibit and the reception and tributes that followed.
I reported to her that Mother Clare Millea, the Vatican’s emissary to investigate U.S. sisters, had attended the event. When I suggested, with a touch of criticism, that I’d like Mother Clare to bring the exhibit to Rome, Mary Daniel simply suggested that her presence at the Smithsonian might be another opportunity for bridge building.
That conversation exhausted, we turned to the continuing valiant service of contemporary women religious. I presented my pocket album containing a recent medical mission to Peru, led by our Mercy Sister Karen Schneider, a pediatrician with Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Only then was I aware that Mary Daniel was no longer able to see.
I left saddened by her failing health and comforted by the warmth of her welcome, her gratitude, and still extraordinary mind. For decades she had put her intellectual and spiritual gifts at the service of numerous religious communities. She was a visionary rooted in reality.
In her own way she was as fearless as the late much loved Loretto Sister Mary Luke Tobin. Mary Luke and I ventured with a women’s group to El Salvador the year after the assassinations of Jean Donovan and Sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel. One day a few of us on our way to the U.S. embassy were surrounded by four rifle pointing terrorists. Mary Luke took stock of the situation and, putting her hand on one of the guns, redirected it while saying, “We are Americans. You have no right to bother us.” They couldn’t understand the language, but her commanding presence stopped them from further threatening us.
Mary Daniel Turner was cut from the same cloth. She was strong, courageous and fearless. She was empowered by her faith and pursuit of truth and justice. And how she loved a party! I rejoiced in seeing her enjoying the accolades heaped upon her when the LCWR honored her with its Outstanding Leadership Award in 2005. She continued to share her wisdom with past presidents at our private luncheons during annual LCWR assemblies. There she unfailingly nourished us.
Turner had suffered many illnesses. Servant of Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Annmarie Sanders and Sister of St. Joseph Janet Mock were among those who kept night vigils during Mary Daniel's last days.
Of course, we loved her and always will. And we give thanks for her long, beautiful life.
By Sister Marlene Weisenbeck
Though never a close associate of Mary Daniel Turner, I remember countless times in my religious life when I heard her name pronounced with awe and reverence. I remember consulting the book she coauthored, “The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters,” as if it were the 20th century gospel experience of religious life. And surely it was.
When I attended a workshop of hers where she was still teaching young sisters about the evolution of thought in an ever evolving world, when she graciously greeted me at the initial Cincinnati opening of the magnificent “Women in Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” exhibit and related her earlier years of leadership for LCWR in collaboration with [Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration] Sister Grace McDonald, my congregational leader of 40 years ago, I sensed the blessing of a woman steeped in relationship to the great Love of her life.
I learned of her stature and love through those who accompanied her in her final days of her journey of life. In every encounter, real or through the experience of others, Mary Daniel was a woman of strength and courage and of expansive love.
Today, as in the past, we celebrate the fulfillment of Mary Daniel’s vowed commitment to the gospel call of love. She called us to eagerly renew and intensify our baptismal call, to proclaim the unconditional welcome and acceptance of God in our lives.
In our world where so many must eat alone because of poverty, illness, war, addiction, and relationship disconnection, where so many are rendered unequal to the company of the priesthood of believers, through her vowed life, she threw open the doors and named the overlooked holy spaces of our world. Not only were meals made holy by Mary Daniel, she also named all places where people gather as holy, and witnessed mercy and loving presence with others. She engaged in the “sacrament of the neighbor” and the “sacrament of the ordinary.”
As executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious from 1972-78 and throughout her 40 year presence with innumerable congregations and the accompaniment of organizations working for the vitality of religious life, she presented herself as knowledgeable, courageous, as gentle, yet fearless. She leaves us this legacy because it found a solid place of focus in her own soul.
In her honor, we light a fire, bring in the bread, and invite our friends to a feast of love. Like Mary Daniel’s, this vowed life of ours clothes us and leads us in ways never imagined. Like Mary Daniel, we give it time; give it love; give it our all! Let us find stillness, a time to gather our thoughts, to connect our spirits and bodies, to reach within ourselves, to connect with those that gather in the community of love and witness, and with those throughout the world, to share our strength and our wisdom.
Through Mary Daniel’s beatific place in the eternal universe of God’s love, we pray to be released from the captivity of our fears; we seek healing from the blindness of those who use power in hateful ways; and freedom from the prisons of unjust relationships. We pray for new vision to relieve the suffering of the world’s people, new ears to hear the cries of the poor, and for hearts aflame for mission.
Eucharisteo, dear friend!
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Funeral arrangements
Wake: 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 31 at Collins Funeral Home, 500 University Blvd., Silver Spring, MD.
Mass of Christian Burial: Monday, Feb. 1 at 10:00 a.m.. St. Camillus Church,
1600 St. Camillus Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20903.
Interment: Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Cemetery in Ilchester, MD.
Contributions can be made in Mary Daniel's name to:
Sisters of Notre Dame Mission Support Office
c/o Leonore Coan, SNDdeN,
30 Jeffreys Neck Road
Ipswich, MA 01938
Cards to Mary Daniel's SNDdeN base community can be sent to:
Sisters of Notre Dame Base Communities
125 Michigan Ave. NE
Washington, DC 20017
