Meet some of the women and men who benefit from the Retirement Fund for Religious collection.
“My mother was not surprised when I told her I wanted be a religious sister,” says Sister Rosemary Zaffuto, a member of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Hamden, Connecticut. “She was used to seeing me off by myself praying or walking to church to pray there.”
“I’ve been stitching over 50 years,” says Sister Viola Marie Spire, a member of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon, Missouri. For most of her religious life, she has served in her community’s Ecclesiastical Art Department, making liturgical vestments, paraments, and stoles.
“I entered religious life at 25,” says Father Michael Gantley, a member of the Order of Friar Servants of Mary (Servites) in Chicago, Illinois. “That was considered old at the time,” he recalls, laughing.
Sister Geraldine Vogel, 84, a member of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon, Missouri, is a testament to “on-the-job” training.