[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E862-E863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TRIBUTE TO SISTER MARGARET CAFFERTY, PBVM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 7, 1997

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, it is with a mixture of sadness and deep 
gratitude that I rise today in tribute to an American woman who devoted 
her life to the causes of civil rights and social and economic justice.
  Margaret Cafferty, a sister of the Presentation Sisters, is her name. 
And her death on April 20, 1997, at her motherhouse in San Francisco 
after a battle with bone cancer, leaves her native city, her country, 
and the global community a proud legacy of a staunch and persuasive 
defender of justice for all, especially the poor and oppressed.
  Born in San Francisco on December 8, 1935, Sister Cafferty was the 
daughter of John Cafferty and Mildred Sinks. Sister Cafferty's sense of 
social justice was nourished from the cradle by her father, a coal 
miner, and her mother, who where both active in the struggle for labor 
rights.
  In 1953, Margaret Cafferty entered the community of the Sisters of 
the Presentation. Her early assignments included teaching high school 
in San Francisco and in Los Angeles where she challenged her students 
to become

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aware of the social needs surrounding them. In 1968, she moved more 
directly into social action, working as a pastoral minister in the 
predominantly African-American community of Sacred Heart Parish in San 
Francisco. At the same time, she pursued and earned her masters of 
social welfare at the University of California at Berkeley.
  As an educator, community organizer, and social justice leader, 
Sister Margaret pioneered new models of building a community within 
parishes. She successfully cultivated partnerships with labor, 
government, business, and the academic community in pursuit of justice. 
She fought tirelessly for civil rights in the African-American 
community of San Francisco, with the United Farm Workers, and with 
refugees from Central America. She led her order's participation in the 
Sanctuary Movement. She sought to know first hand the plight of the 
poor, visiting the migrant camps in California, the slums in our inner 
cities, and the poor communities on Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and 
El Salvador where her sisters worked. She was a bridge-builder and a 
peacemaker, She lived out the maxim, ``If you want peace, work for 
justice.''
  On numerous occasions, she was called upon to exercise her exemplary 
leadership skills by working with the National Conference of Catholic 
Bishops, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious [LCWR], NETWORK, 
the Catholic organization which lobbies Congress on social justice 
issues, and by her own order. She exerted unparalleled leadership in 
building dialog within the Roman Catholic Church about the role of 
religious women. She never hesitated to speak the truth, to find 
opportunity in crisis, to identify hope within the most desperate hour.
  From 1981 to 1990, the Presentation Sisters elected her to be 
superior general, and from 1992 until her untimely death, she served as 
the executive director of the LCWR.
  As her sisters declared, ``While Sister Margaret's contributions to 
the communities she served as an organizer and an advocate for the 
underserved were far-reaching, she will be remembered by bishops and 
beggars, by legislators and labor leaders, by friends and foes alike as 
an extremely gracious, articulate, determined and compassionate woman 
of faith who will be sorely missed.''
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending condolences 
to Sister Margaret's sister, Ellen Cafferty, herself a missionary in 
Guatemala, and to the Union of the Sisters of the Presentation [PVBM].

                          ____________________