Sister Kate Kuenstler PHJC, JCD | |
|---|---|
 Sr. Kate Kuenstler (l) receives the Trivison award from Sr. Christine Schenk, 2012 | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | Mary Kathleen Kuenstler January 21, 1949 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | October 28, 2019 (aged 70) Donaldson, Indiana, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Religious life | |
| Religion | Catholic |
Kate Kuenstler (1949-2019) was an American Roman Catholic sister and a canon lawyer.
Mary Kathleen Kuenstler was born Jan. 21, 1949, in St. Louis City, Missouri, and was adopted by Lawrence John Kuenstler (1911-1983) and Lorraine Helen Buerster Kuenstler (1915-2003). [1] Inspired by the Catholic sisters who taught her in elementary and high school, Kuenstler joined the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, located in Donaldson, Indiana, in 1967. She professed vows in 1970. [2]
She received a bachelor's degree in education from St. Joseph's College in East Chicago, Indiana, and began her first ministry in education as an elementary teacher for almost 10 years at schools in Indiana and Minnesota. She earned a master's degree in religious education and ministered as a director of education and a diocesan consultant in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and in the Diocese of Belleville.
Asked by her community to pursue studies in canon law, Kuenstler earned a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1992. She served several terms as a marriage tribunal judge before opening her own practice as an independent canon lawyer with a special focus on the rights of the laity. Kuenstler's practice covered many states and countries, including Canada and Australia. [3]
Her legal defense of the canonical rights of lay people changed Vatican policy. Previously the Holy See automatically accepted U.S. bishops' decisions to close and sell vibrant churches. [4] After her intervention its policy became one that preserves those churches as worship sites instead. [5] A new book about her life
In 2012 she received the Rev. Louis J. Trivison Award from FutureChurch for her canonical advocacy. [6] Her work is chronicled in a 2017 documentary, "Foreclosing on Faith." [7] A December 2024 book from Sheed & Ward, Bending Toward Justice: Sr. Kate Kuenstler and the Struggle for Parish Rights by FutureChurch co-founder Christine Schenk, also includes her biography. [8]
In a 2017 interview for Commonweal, she noted that it is quite common for bishops to shut parishes that are financially solvent and merge them with a poorer parish that owes money to the diocese. The solvent parish is eventually sold allowing the newly merged congregation to pay off the debt owed to the diocese. [9] In the course of her career, Kuenstler assisted hundreds of parish communities in at least 48 dioceses. [10]
Kuenstler's canonical jurisprudence was subsequently validated by Vatican guidelines issued in April 2013, and again in July, 2020. [11] [12] [13] [14]
Kuenstler's defense of the canonical rights of the laity changed Vatican policy from automatically accepting U.S. bishops' decisions to close and sell active churches to one that preserves those churches as worship sites instead. [15] [16] Kuenstler's work set precedent for other canon lawyers. [17] The 2017 documentary "Foreclosing on Faith" details her work with successful parishioner appeals in New York City and Cleveland, Ohio. [18] [19] [20] [21] The documentary also features Kuenstler's analysis of Boston's 2004 attempt to close 83 parishes. [22]
Following an unexpected illness, Kuenstler moved to Catherine's Cottage, established by the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, in January 2019. [23] and then to the Catherine Kasper Home in Donaldson, Indiana, home of their motherhouse, in May 2019. She died there on October 28 of the same year.
Anthony Joseph Bevilacqua was an American cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1988 to 2003. Bevilacqua previously served as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh from 1983 to 1987 and as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn from 1980 to 1983. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1991.
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The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ (PHJC) is a female congregation of the Catholic Church. It originated in Dernbach (Westerwald), Germany, where the generalate is still located. Their organization for associates is also open to men. The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ American Province has its motherhouse in Donaldson, Indiana.
In the Catholic Church, a parish is a stable community of the faithful within a particular church, whose pastoral care has been entrusted to a parish priest, under the authority of the diocesan bishop. It is the lowest ecclesiastical subdivision in the Catholic episcopal polity, and the primary constituent unit of a diocese or eparchy. Parishes are extant in both the Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches. In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, parishes are constituted under cc. 515–552, entitled "Parishes, Pastors, and Parochial Vicars."
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