Sister Mary Jo Stein, Daughter of Charity, will deliver the twelfth annual William K. Collinge Lecture, Tuesday, June 25, at 7 p.m., at St. Francis Xavier School, 465 Table Rock Road, Gettysburg. In her lecture, titled “Being Good Relatives in the Community of God’s Good Earth,” Sister Mary Jo will present a practical, local approach to the climate crisis and the call to grow in our commitment to care for our common home as people of faith and people of good will. The lecture will build upon Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.”
Sr. Mary Jo, a Daughter of Charity for over 35 years, has served in the Southeast and Midwest areas of the US, in Bolivia, and at the Daughters of Charity Motherhouse in Paris, France. She has engaged in various forms of ministry, including teacher of biology and French, hospital nurse, family practice nurse practitioner in the community health realm, interpreter/translator, formation director for new members in the Daughters of Charity, and a loving companion to all our relations on the journey of integral ecology as a promoter for the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.
She is passionate about the inseparable link between healthy Earth and healthy humanity. She feeds her soul by gardening, bicycling, books, and conversation about the natural world. She is grateful for opportunities to apply her experiences in international, intercultural settings and her background in biology and healthcare to join with others in the ever-widening circle of care for all of creation who call this planet our home.
The Collinge Lecture, an annual event jointly sponsored by the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice and the St. Francis Xavier Church, honors the late William K. Collinge, who left significant bequests to St. Francis Xavier Church and ICPJ. Admission is free.