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.
On the day of the pope’s Washington visit, hundreds of laypeople gathered outside the basilica, holding placards calling for the ordination of women. Inside, dozens of nuns stood silently among the seated audience. Most were in street clothes, despite the pope’s preference that nuns wear habits.
Sister Theresa began her address by expressing the commitment of American Catholic women to the pope’s efforts to address global poverty and oppression. Then she turned that sentiment inward.
“Your Holiness, I urge you to be mindful of the intense suffering and pain which is part of the life of many women in these United States,” she said, as he sat impassively. In order to join the pope in his mission, she said, women needed to be equal participants within the church hierarchy.
“The church in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our church,” she said.
Half the audience of about 5,000 nuns erupted in applause; the other half sat quietly, many of them in disapproval. When she finished, Sister Theresa walked over to John Paul II and knelt. He placed his hand on her head in blessing.
Sister Theresa’s address was televised. It made the front page of The New York Times. Thousands of letters and phone calls poured in to the Sisters of Mercy headquarters in Tarrytown, N.Y., both critical and supportive.
“What she said was indicative of a much larger conversation that was going on for more than a decade,” Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame, said in an interview.
Her stand made her a leading figure among progressive Catholic women, and in subsequent years she took similarly liberal positions on issues including abortion, universal health care and same-sex marriage.
“It is almost unheard-of for a woman to counter a pope,” Jamie L. Manson, the president of Catholics for Choice, said in an interview. “What she did was so bold for the courage that it took, because he was such a powerful man.”
The daughter of Irish immigrants, Margaret Joan Kane was born on Sept. 24, 1936, in the Bronx. Her mother, Mary (Faherty) Kane, raised her and her six siblings, while her father, Philip, rolled cable for Consolidated Edison and cleaned offices in Manhattan.
She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1955, taking the name Theresa. She received bachelor’s degrees in economics and finance from Manhattanville College (now Manhattanville University) in 1959, a master’s degree in public administration from New York University in 1986 and a master’s in history from Sarah Lawrence College in 1993.
She is survived by her sisters, Barbara DiMaria and Catherine Hartdegen.
Sister Theresa was marked as a leader early in her career. In 1964, when she was just 27, she was named chief executive of St. Francis Hospital (now Bon Secours Community Hospital) in Port Jervis, N.Y. She became the head of the Sisters of Mercy’s New York province a few years later, then the head of a nine-province union and finally, in 1977, the president of the entire order. She served in that role for seven years.
Sister Theresa rarely wore a habit, opting instead for a large silver cross pinned to her lapel. She embraced the feminist movement of the 1970s, and she was among the first prominent church figures to champion L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics.
She became the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 1978 and held that position until 1981. She later taught history and behavioral science at Mercy College (now Mercy University) in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
Sister Theresa faced a backlash after her 1979 address, as did the Sisters of Mercy and the nuns group she led, under both John Paul II and his even more conservative successor, Pope Benedict. Even under the relatively progressive Pope Francis, women’s ordination remains elusive.
“There’s something really seriously wrong with our church,” she told The National Catholic Reporter in 2019, four decades after her address. “I don’t think men want to see women as priests. It’s a great loss to our church. They will regret it someday.”
