Local Holy Cross sister attends jubilee in Rome

Friday, Oct. 24, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah-based Holy Cross sister joined thousands of other men and women religious in Rome Oct. 8-9 to celebrate the Jubilee of Consecrated Life with the theme “Pilgrims of hope, on the way of peace.” The event was part of the Jubilee Year of Hope.

Sister Laura Guadalupe Tiburcio Santos, CSC attended the two-day event thanks to an opportunity that her religious order offered to 16 sisters, who joined fellow Holy Cross brothers and priests in Rome.

“My congregation decided to send a representation because we could not all go,” said Sr. Tiburcio, explaining that her congregation is active in South America, North America, Africa and India.

The sisters decided to draw names to decide who among the sisters in the area of North America, which includes the United States and Mexico, would go to Rome.

Sr. Tiburcio was reluctant to put her name in for the drawing, she said. “I have never ever won anything, so at first I didn’t want to participate, but then something told me just do it … and my name got selected.”

Crossing the Atlantic and having the opportunity to see the pope was something that she never thought she would have the opportunity to do. “It was a very big surprise,” she said. “Being there filled me with joy, because I saw sisters that are all over the world, and I encountered sisters that I haven’t seen in 10 years.”

The Holy Cross religious order includes brothers and priests and three branches of religious women: the Marianites of Holy Cross, who were founded in Le Mans, France; the Sisters of Holy Cross, headquartered in Montreal, Canada; and the Sisters of the Holy Cross, who have their mother house in Notre Dame, Ind. Sr. Tiburcio is affiliated with the Sisters of the Holy Cross; she offers social services work in the Midvale area.

Being in Rome, “in the middle of so much chaos and turmoil being there surrounded by sisters, brothers and priests, it was really a pilgrimage of hope,” she said. It also “renewed my hope in terms of religious life. Living here in Utah, where we don’t get to see sisters almost anywhere … the thoughts of that we are becoming extinct, that we don’t have any more presence, that there are no vocations, were very frequent in me.” 

However, after being among an estimated 34,000 religious people at the jubilee, her thoughts changed.

“I thought to myself, ‘Who says that the religious life is dying?’ We just need to work harder, raising awareness of religious vocations in Utah,” she said.

One highlight of the pilgrimage was attending Mass at which Pope Leo XIV presided, Sr. Tiburcio said. “I have no words except joy and peace to what it is to describe what is to be in his holy presence.”

Among the other events in Rome were a pilgrimage through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, prayer vigils, and the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 915-930, the consecrated life is the permanent state of life in which a person deepens their baptismal consecration through profession of the three evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience 

The Holy See has designated many Jubilee Days throughout 2025 to recognize and celebrate different groups of people and various ministries in the Church.