[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 211 (Monday, December 15, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8708-S8709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REMEMBERING SISTERS OF MERCY PAT AND JOANN

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV asked us 
to reflect on chapter 25 of Matthew's gospel. This passage details the 
questions that will be posed to determine the contents of a person's 
soul. They will be asked, ``How did you receive the foreigner? Did you 
welcome him or not?'' At this moment of judgement, I know two people 
who would feel confident in their answer: Sisters of Mercy JoAnn Persch 
and Patricia Murphy. So well-known among immigration groups that they 
were known simply as ``the Sisters,'' these two women collectively 
spent nearly two centuries doing God's work here on Earth. Sadly, both 
sisters passed away earlier this year, leaving a legacy of strength, 
kindness, and grace.
  Sister Pat was born on April 20, 1929, in Chicago, and Sister JoAnn 
was born on June 27, 1934, in Milwaukee. Although both women entered 
the Sisters of Mercy in Des Plaines at a young age, their paths would 
not converge until they both arrived to teach in Fox Point, WI. This 
meeting of two kindred spirits sparked a decades-long advocacy effort 
that began in the 1980s.
  That was a period of violent upheaval in Central America's Northern 
Triangle. Civil wars and conflict in Guatemala, El Salvador, and 
Honduras were displacing thousands of people every month, and many of 
these refugees came to the United States to avoid persecution. But once 
these immigrants arrived in America, many of them

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found the asylum system completely inaccessible. Mass rejections of 
asylum applications threatened to return immigrants to the violence 
they had just fled. Witnessing this injustice, the Sisters became 
involved with the immigrant sanctuary movement to demand that the 
United States protect immigrants from chaos in their home countries.
  As the Sisters advocated for immigration reform, they simultaneously 
worked to provide charity and housing for those applying for asylum. In 
1990, the Sisters established the Su Casa Catholic Worker House, a home 
for refugees in Chicago. The Sisters lived at Su Casa for 7 years, 
helping families and children fleeing war, torture, and unspeakable 
violence find a home in Chicago. Because this didn't keep them busy 
enough, during their time at Su Casa, the Sisters helped a single 
mother with a mental health condition raise her daughter. They became 
foster moms for 13-year-old Clarice, sharing their love while dropping 
her off at her dance class and song lessons.
  The Sisters left Su Casa in 1997 to go to Casa Notre Dame, a 
different shelter that provided housing and protection to women fleeing 
domestic violence. Sister Pat was 68, and Sister JoAnn was 61. One 
would think, at this stage of their lives, these two sisters would want 
to slow down after what were already four decades of service to others. 
But only a few short years after arriving at Casa Notre Dame, the 
Sisters were asked to become justice coordinators with the Sisters of 
Mercy, taking on a larger leadership position in the movement for 
immigration reform.
  In their role as justice coordinators, the Sisters were called one 
January day in 2007 to go to the Broadview ICE facility and pray for a 
group of detainees there who were to be deported from the United 
States. They arrived early in the morning, with temperatures plunging 
to negative 20 degrees, not that it would stop them. The two stood 
outside Broadview and prayed for the immigrants who were about to be 
deported. Seeing the grief and powerlessness experienced by these 
immigrants, the Sisters decided to return to Broadview every Friday and 
pray for its detainees. For more than 20 years, they honored this 
commitment. Through pouring rain and sweltering heat, the Sisters would 
be outside Broadview, offering support for immigrants and their 
families.
  Soon after they began this mission, the Sisters walked up to the 
front doors at Broadview and rang the bell. They wanted to go inside to 
speak directly to the detainees and offer them comfort. Their request 
was quickly denied. But what the ICE employees did not know at the time 
was that these were two women who, peacefully and respectfully, never 
took no for an answer. Together, the Sisters founded the Interfaith 
Committee for Detained Immigrants, or ICDI. This group ventured to 
Springfield the next year to lobby for the Access to Religious Ministry 
Act, a bill that would allow immigrant detainees in State and county 
facilities to consult with a religious worker regarding their spiritual 
needs. Less than a month after their visit to the State capitol, the 
bill passed both chambers unanimously.
  As Sister Pat said, ``The divine and the sacred are the ordinary 
human things of life. It's love, life, death, eating, sleeping, 
socializing with people.'' I had the great fortune of going to 
Broadview with Sister Pat and Sister JoAnn where we shared in these 
sacred moments. As these immigrants' lives were turned upside, 
sometimes there was nothing to be done but offer our support, our 
prayer for their situation. The Sisters helped counsel hundreds of 
immigrants amid their grief and offer them what little comfort they 
could. Even the guards at Broadview grew to appreciate the Sisters' 
presence, and they began to invite the Sisters to some of their office 
parties. Very few people could leave an interaction with these two 
women without being touched by their love for humanity.
  The decades of kindness that the Sisters showed immigrants, 
activists, and anyone in their path continues to leave a mark on 
Chicago. There are still dozens of people who show up outside of 
Broadview every day to offer prayer and hope for those inside. There 
are still those in Springfield and Washington, DC, who are fighting 
against the inhumane separation of immigrants from their lives and 
families. In their actions, the spirits of Sisters Pat and JoAnn live 
on. In each person's decision to welcome the stranger, the Sisters' 
memory is honored.

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