SALT LAKE CITY - Holy Cross Sister Patricia Riley will start a new mission in Ventura, Calif., in April. "I am happy to go where I am needed," said Sr. Patricia. "I know I will be working with sisters who are in retirement and I will be there for them. My last day in the diocese will be Feb. 6, and then I will take a three-month break."
Sr. Patricia just finished leading the four-year diaconate formation program through which 21 men were ordained permanent deacons
At her going-away party, the Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake, said Sr. Patricia is stellar and he knew he did not have to worry about the deacons because they were in good hands.
"When I was assigned to start the diaconate program, I told (then) Bishop George Niederauer (now Archbishop of San Francisco) ‘I've never worked with deacons,'" said Sr. Patricia. "‘I don't know anything about their formation.' Bishop Niederauer said, ‘Don't worry, Benedictine Sister Jeremia Januschka has been working with the deacons and she will help you.' So we did the psychological testing, home visits, interviews, reviewed references and recommendations and accepted 24 men. I prepared the curriculum. Then following the first night's class, Sr. Jeremia died unexpectedly. But the program all came together with the cooperation of priests, deacons, religious, Vicar General Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald, Bishop Wester and diocesan personnel."
Sr. Patricia has been a Holy Cross sister for 58 years. She grew up in the farming town of Colusa in northern California. She was taught by the Holy Cross sisters in elementary school.
"In the 6th grade, I wondered if I could be a sister. Then I wondered again when I was a freshman," said Sr. Patricia. "As I look back at the sisters, they were always interested in everybody. They would come to my horse shows, swim meets, visit people who were ill; they were just part of our life."
As a senior in high school, Sr. Patricia began to plan her future and talked to the sisters. She entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross at Notre Dame in Indiana in September following her graduation from high school in 1951. She made her first vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience three years later, and her final vows after six years. She graduated as a teacher and learned what it meant to be a sister.
"It's been right," said Sr. Patricia. "I've been a teacher, a principal in four different schools, and received my master's degree in theology at Seattle University. I then started doing parish ministry. I've been in Utah three different times."
She first came to Utah as a principal at Bishop Glass School located next to Saint Patrick Parish, where Msgr. Fitzgerald was her pastor. She returned in the 1980s under Bishop William Weigand to serve with Holy Cross Sister Eileen Dewsnup in Cedar City, Kanab, Richfield, Milford, and Saint George. They would stay with people about five days in these areas to start religious education programs, or to meet other needs, before moving on to the next area. They became known as the "gypsy sisters."
On her third visit to Utah in 1997, her ministry was to help with the new Skaggs Catholic Center, working with Dr. Galey Colosimo and Holy Cross Sister Karla McKinnie, hiring 100 teachers. After that, she worked for four years at Saint Marguerite Parish with Father Matthew Wixtedbefore starting the diaconate formation program.
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