Sister’s Social Justice Tempered With Humor

I was pleased to read Bettijane Levine’s article about the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (“Our Life of Prayer,” Nov. 22). Levine did a great job portraying this rare group of women, as did Wally Skalij’s beautiful, impressionistic photo that accompanied the article.

The article led me to reminisce about Sister Clare Dunn, a member of this religious order who served as a state legislator in Arizona in the 1970s. I had the honor of attending a class on social justice from Sister Clare at that time, and her influence has stayed with me through the years. At that time, I was a self-styled revolutionary, ready to raze the churches and the government. Sister Clare exemplified a steely adherence to the cause of social justice while tempering that commitment with the sort of gentleness and humor described in the article. I now understand that this was the key to her survival in both the Catholic Church and the Arizona political climate of those times. Although she ruffled many feathers in both the church and the conservative Arizona Legislature, she was admired by most and came to be called “the conscience of the Legislature.”

Sister Clare died a few years later in a traffic accident while commuting between her home in Tucson and her legislative duties, but I still keep her business card in my files, and when I occasionally run across it, I am reminded that it is possible to work within the system and still accomplish important change. I’m sure the women described in Levine’s article are cut from the same cloth, and it is comforting to know such heroines are working to advance the cause of social justice.

MELISSA JONES

Las Flores