Janice McLaughlin

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Janice McLaughlin
M.M.
Born(1942-02-13)February 13, 1942
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 7, 2021(2021-03-07) (aged 79)
Ossining, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationCollege of Saint Mary of the Springs
Marquette University
University of Zimbabwe
Occupation(s)Maryknoll Missionary Sister, activist, missionary

Janice McLaughlin

Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic
in New York and worked as an anti-human trafficking activist.

Early life

McLaughlin was born on February 13, 1942, in

Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic in Ossining, New York.[1][2] The order, founded in 1912, was the first American congregation of Roman Catholic nuns dedicated to overseas missions.[1] She made her first progression of vows on June 24, 1964, in New York and her final profession on June 24, 1972, in Kitale, Kenya.[2][3]

In 1969 she graduated

magna cum laude from Marquette University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theology, anthropology, and sociology.[4]

Religious career and mission work

McLaughlin worked as a missionary in Africa for almost forty years, mainly in

United States State Department, the United Nations, and the Vatican spoke out on her behalf.[1] On the day of her deportation, she was greeted by 50 black and white Rhodesians, many of them Catholic priests and religious sisters, at the airport.[1] They reportedly cheered for her and sang the black nationalist anthem Ishe Komborera Africa.[1] Upon her return to the United States, McLaughlin told a reporter from The New York Times that she was not a Marxist but she did support the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army and the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, stating, "I think it's come to the point where it's impossible to bring about change without the war, and I support change."[1]

After her deportation, she worked with the Washington Office on Africa.[4] In 1979 she became the projects officer for the Zimbabwe Project, an initiative set up by Catholic donors to assist refugees from the civil war in Rhodesia.[4] Two years after her deportation, McLaughlin returned to Africa, where she helped Rhodesian exiles and refugees in Mozambique.[1] After the white Rhodesian government ceded power to black Zimbabweans in 1980, she returned to Harare to celebrate the installation of Robert Mugabe as the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.[1][6] Mugabe asked for McLaughlin's help rebuilding the nation's educational system, to which she agreed.[1] Along with education reform, she established nine schools for former refugees and war veterans.[1] She co-wrote a book about the educational experiment called Education with Production in Zimbabwe: the Story of ZIMFEP.[4] When Mugabe was removed from power, she criticized his leadership, stating "A man who had raised such high hopes for peace, reconciliation, and development in 1980 had instead left a legacy of violence, poverty, corruption, hunger, and hopelessness."[6]

In 1991, McLaughlin returned to the Maryknoll community in New York to work as the communications coordinator.

Jesuit-run training and development education center for the poor.[4] She continued to live in Zimbabwe until 2009, where she served as the chairwoman of the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching and as the chairwoman of the Counseling Service Unit.[4] She co-authored an advocacy training manual used throughout Zimbabwe to train local communities to lobby for policy changes in government and, in 2009, published the book Ostriches, Dung Beetles, and other Spiritual Master: A Book of Wisdom from the Wild.[4][7]

She was elected as president of the Maryknoll Sisters in 2009 and served in that capacity for six years.[1][2] After her term as president ended, she returned to Zimbabwe and worked in community development and in efforts to stop human trafficking.[5] She also worked with the Catholic University of Zimbabwe as a research advisor and conference coordinator.[8][9]

Personal life and death

In 1992 McLaughlin earned a master's degree and a doctorate in religious studies from the University of Zimbabwe.[4] Her thesis, titled On the Frontline, Rural Catholic Missions and Zimbabwe's Liberation War, was published in 1995.[4][2]

She was conferred an Honorary Doctor of Religious Studies degree by Marquette University on May 23, 2010.[4] On May 18, 2014, she was conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut.[2]

McLaughlin died on March 7, 2021, at the motherhouse of the

Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic in Ossining, New York.[1] A funeral mass was livestreamed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, on March 12, 2021, from the Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center.[2] McLaughlin donated her body to scientific research.[2][3]

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa eulogized her after her death, stating that she "helped give the liberation struggle an enhanced international voice and reach."[1] The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association announced it would urge President Mnangagwa to declare McLaughlin a "national heroine".[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Seelye, Katharine Q. (March 26, 2021). "Janice McLaughlin, Nun Who Exposed Abuse in Africa, Dies at 79". The New York Times.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Sister Janice McLaughlin M.M., Maryknoll Sister for 59 Years Dies". March 11, 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Sister Janice McLaughlin, M.M." March 25, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Sister Janice McLaughlin, M.M. // University Honors // Marquette University". www.marquette.edu.
  5. ^ a b c d "Sister Janice McLaughlin, a Pittsburgh native who exposed abuses in Rhodesia, dies at 79". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  6. ^ a b c d "Remembering Janice McLaughlin, the Maryknoll sister who found freedom in the struggle for African liberation". America Magazine. March 10, 2021.
  7. ^ Matibiri, Margaret (March 8, 2021). "Sister Janice McLaughlin dies".[permanent dead link]
  8. OCLC 1261879433
    .
  9. ^ "Q & A with Sr. Janice McLaughlin, combating human trafficking in Zimbabwe". Global Sisters Report. March 5, 2019.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Janice_McLaughlin&oldid=1173956137"