Sisters of St. Ann donate $3 million
By Chandra Lye
Special to The B.C. Catholic
Sister Rita Larivee, SSA, congregation leader for the Sisters of St. Ann (front row, fifth from right), stands with other Sisters of St. Ann and B.C. and NWT bishops. Peter Meehan, principal of Saint Mark’s College (back row, centre), said the school hoped to hire someone for the Marie Anne Blondin Chair in Theology by 2017. Photo submitted to BCC.
The Sisters of St. Ann have donated $3 million to Saint Mark’s College in Vancouver, hoping to strengthen British Columbia’s Catholic schools.
The donation will establish the Marie Anne Blondin Chair in Theology, which will focus on teaching and research regarding the Catholic faith.
“It is one of the things we have heard over and over again,” Sister Marie Zarowny, the provincial leader of the Sisters of St. Ann, explained: “There are no opportunities for people who are actually teaching religious ed in schools; they just teach what they learned when they went to school.
“We really have felt strongly the need for a sound theological formation for people who are leading others in faith education.”
Sister Zarowny said Saint Mark’s will now offer that to the province. “We have been working with them to make sure it is available also in rural areas, not just here in Vancouver.”
The school said annual earnings from the money will allow them to develop outreach and distance-education programs.
The Sisters of St. Ann have always focused on education and health care in their work, but the number of active members has fallen.
“As our numbers have decreased and we have had to sell and let go of some of our institutions a lot of our fixed costs have decreased. So it has kind of come together just in the last couple of years” as they have found new ways to keep their mission alive.
As a teacher who benefited from theological studies at Saint Mark’s, Nicola Liang said she found the experience took her beyond what she had learned in high school.
“It stretched me in many ways, but it led me to want more, more from my spiritual life. I wanted to know more about Jesus and my faith, the Catholic church.
“I’ve always had a relationship with Christ but I think my time at Saint Mark’s definitely intensified that spark, that flame for Christ.”
Liang now teaches at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School in North Vancouver.
“To this day I still turn to my former instructors, former professors, for some support when I need it as a teacher.”
The donation and the enduring benefits to Saint Mark’s will help position the school in the public eye, principal Dr. Peter Meehan said.
“It is a sign of life for us, which is really important because the theological colleges at UBC are small, but we are vocal and we are alive. This sort of thing says to the public that we have got a very strong mission and an important role to play.”
Dr. Meehan said they hoped to begin the hiring process shortly and have someone in place by the fall of 2017.
“These things take time, but all good things are worth waiting for.”
The endowment was one of the largest in Saint Mark’s history, and one of the largest gifts ever given to a Catholic theological college in the province.
