Women religious

A memorial Mass will be celebrated Friday, May 31, for Sister Jeanne Schaedler, MM, a missioner for nearly 40 years in South Korea, at the Maryknoll Sisters Main Chapel in Maryknoll, N.Y.

Sister Jeanne died May 16 at Maryknoll Residential Care IV in Maryknoll. She was 78 and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 58 years.

She was born in Melrose, an area now part of Wildwood, and entered Maryknoll in 1954. She made her first profession of vows at the motherhouse in 1957 and her final vows in Korea in 1963.

It was the last day of school before students at Cor Jesu Academy started their final exams. The girls had gathered in the gymnasium to receive awards at the annual Honors Convocation. But before they finished, they had one more important task to accomplish.

WASHINGTON -- Human trafficking is so widespread that congregations of women religious are uniting in a nationwide effort to limit its reach.

The effort will focus on broader education about sex and labor trafficking, legislative advocacy for stricter laws and penalties for traffickers and wider support for victims through much-needed social services and employment.

A funeral Mass was celebrated May 13 for Sister Frances Miriam Spalding at Mount St. Joseph in Maple Mount, Ky. Sister Frances Miriam, 94, an Ursuline Sister of Mount St. Joseph, died May 9 at Mount St. Joseph.

A native of Bardstown, Ky., she was an educator who served primarily in Kentucky, but also in Missouri. She was also director of transportation at the Ursuline Motherhouse in Maple Mount from 1981-85. In the St. Louis Archdiocese, she taught at St. Teresa School in Glennonville (then in the St. Louis Archdiocese), 1945-51, and Seven Holy Founders School in Affton, 1957-60.

A memorial Mass was to be celebrated at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 18, in the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows at the Loretto Center in Webster Groves for Loretto Sister Frances Ann (formerly Sister Mary Dominic) O'Bryan, who helped to start the special education program in the St. Louis Archdiocese.

Sister Frances Ann, 92, taught for more than 50 years in the St. Louis Archdiocese and opened one of the archdiocese's first special education classrooms. She died April 30 at the Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary in Nerinx, Ky.

A funeral Mass was celebrated May 13 for Sister Jovita Marie Stenger in the chapel at the Sarah Community in Bridgeton. Sister Jovita, a Franciscan Sister of Mary for 65 years and an FSM missionary in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for 32 years, died May 8 at the Sarah Community. She was 82.