By Laura Ieraci
ROME — Lay Centre alumna Susan Timoney is among the contributors in a new book that celebrates 10 women saints.
“Dieci Donne Sante: Artefici dell’umano” (“Ten Women Saints: Builders of Humanity”), was published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican’s publishing house, and released last month. The 114-page book contains the proceedings of an international conference on the topic at which she participated, held in Rome, March 7-8. The book is available in pdf format on the internet.
Timoney, who is an associate professor of practical studies at Catholic University of America, is one of three authors to offer short biographies of women saints in English. The other biographies are in Spanish or Italian. Two of the saints featured are North American: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.
Timoney focused on St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded the first American community of women religious in the United States in 1813, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph.
She summarizes St. Elizabeth’s mission as stemming from her “desire … to form young women for a life of virtue, for a lifelong desire to know the truth and, in that, to live in faith and to live in the Church.”
St. Elizabeth and her sisters first “opened St. Joseph’s in the Valley School for Girls with catechism classes for children unable to pay tuition, including both free and enslaved African American children,” Timoney wrote.
But the saint’s mission quickly spread to Philadelphia and beyond. The work of her community continued to grow and thrive even after her death in 1821 at the age of 46. Today, the Daughters of Charity have more than 1,850 sisters in about 30 countries.
In his message during a private audience with conference participants, which is included in the book, Pope Francis noted that the women saints highlighted at the conference lived during periods in history when “women were mostly excluded from social and ecclesial life.”
“All of them, in different times and cultures, with their own different styles and with initiatives of charity, education and prayer, have given proof of how the ‘feminine genius’ knows how to reflect the holiness of God in the world in a unique way,” he said.
Underlining the important witness of saintly women, the pope urged participants “without forcing” and “with careful discernment, docile to the voice of the Spirit and faithful to communion” to help each other “identify suitable ways for the greatness and role of women to be better valued among the people of God.”
“In the world, where women still suffer so much violence, disparity, injustice and mistreatment — and this is scandalous, even more so for those who profess faith in the God ‘born of a woman’ (Gal. 4:4) — there is a serious form of discrimination, which is precisely linked to the education of women,” he stated. “It is in fact feared in many contexts, but the path to better societies passes through the education of girls and young women, of which human development benefits.”
