Peace Pays a Price: A Study of Margaret Anna Cusack, the Nun of Kenmare

By Dorothy A. Vidulich

Margaret Anna Cusack, the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, was bold, courageous and visionary. She dedicated her life to fighting social injustice, especially toward the poor, women, and children. In 1884, she founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, a religious order whose members still actively live her founding charism of peace through justice.

Based on Cusack’s many books, biographies, letters and other research, Dorothy Vidulich, herself a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, has written a concise study of Cusack’s life. In particular, she has focused on Cusack’s courage to confront the discrimination and injustice promulgated by society and a patriarchal church, which ultimately forced her to leave the religious order she had founded for it to be saved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359787364

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Peace Pays a Price: A Study of Margaret Anna Cusack, the Nun of Kenmare

Peace Pays a Price

Dorothy A. Vidulich, CSJP

Dorothy A. Vidulich, CSJP worked for social justice issues with national and international groups for much of her religious life. She was a coordinator of the peace and justice center for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in the eastern region (1974-1979) and Congregational coordinator of the Washington D.C. peace and justice office (1979-85). A former communications coordinator for NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, she also served as research reporter at the Washington D.C. Bureau Office of the National Catholic Reporter and a freelance writer. Sister Dorothy spent her final years at the sisters’ retirement center in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. She passed away in 2012.

Peace Pays a Price:

A Study of Margaret Ann Cusack

The Nun of Kenmare

Dorothy A. Vidulich, CSJP

Kenmare Press

2019

Copyright

Copyright © 2019 by Dorothy A. Vidulich

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 1975.

Reissued: 1990.

ISBN: 978-0-359-70762-1

eISBN: 978-0-359-78736-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911548

Kenmare Press

An imprint of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace

399 Hudson Terrace

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632

www.csjp.org

Those who stand and watch the rushing torrent  are more likely to discern whither it is going, and what it bears on its surface, than those who are dashed along on its resistless waves. They can see and sympathise with the agonizing efforts of those who strive to breast the mighty waters, to steer the little bark of life, without shipwreck, to the eternal shore.

They see those who are miserably unconscious of their danger, sometimes because they will not see it, sometimes because they do not see it.

They have asked themselves, Whither is the bark of life hastening? to what shore? Whence has this bark of life come? From whom? to what end? In the still strength of silent power, they stand — Not in unsympathising indifference, for they also have life: and while there is life, such are the conditions of our race, that there must be suffering and conflict.

M.F. Cusack

Woman’s Work in Modern Society

1874

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

1 | To Pay a Price

2 | To be Poor

3 | To be Political

4 | To Conform or Rebel

5 | To be Prophetic

6 | To Meet the Challenge

7 | To Share the Vision Abroad

8 | To be Alienated

9 | To be Faithful

10 | To be

Epilogue

Writings of Margaret Anna Cusack

Acknowledgements

In her original acknowledgements to Peace Pays a Price, Sister Dorothy expressed her gratitude to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace who supported her in the writing and research of this book, especially Margaret Byrne, Louise Dempsey, Patricia Lynch and Ann Rutan. She benefited from the research of Irene Ffrench Eagar, Catherine O'Connor, Catherine Ferguson, Brendan Fay; from the archival work of Joan Ward and Rosalie McQuaide; and from the encouraging help of Mary Donohue.

Above all, she deeply appreciated the support of Jeanne Keaveny who shared her insights about Margaret Anna Cusack, critiqued each page of the book, and encouraged Dorothy.

Foreword

It seems most appropriate that during the year of our 135th Anniversary of the founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, that we reprint Sister Dorothy Vidulich’s book, Peace Pays a Price. We are blessed that Dorothy had the desire and the gift to write a narrative of our founder, Margaret Anna Cusack (Mother Clare).

Our founder’s passion and work for peace was often received with skepticism and rejection, yet her work for justice is as real and important today as it was 135 years ago. Each rereading of Dorothy’s book brings Mother Clare’s message ever fresh and new, especially for all those who resonate with its message that peace does exact a price. And for those who work and labor for peace through justice in a world that is often deaf to its message, this book is a blessing. It helps us renew our commitment to the gospel of peace.

As Dorothy writes of Mother Clare: It is so easy to experience quiet, but not peace. For the price of peace in the midst of mediocrity is the courage to be a sign of contradiction. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, none more so than our founder.

Sister Sheila Lemieux, CSJP

Congregation Leader, 2019

Introduction

In 1975, Dorothy Vidulich wrote Peace Pays A Price as A Study of the Nun of Kenmare. Margaret Anna Cusack had been reclaimed as the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace at the Congregation’s 1970 General Chapter at Nottingham, England.

Dorothy came to know, to admire and to love Margaret Anna as she paged through her many books and visited places dear to her. Margaret Anna’s life story reflects the reality of many courageous women – past and present – who work to destroy the barricades of discrimination and injustice which church patriarchy and societal sexism have constructed to keep women in their place.

Margaret Anna Cusack created her own place and never permitted herself or the women who chose to work with her to be – as she described in Woman’s Work in Modern Society (1874)" – the toys or the slaves of men:' She paid a price for peace but never at the cost of her integrity.

Dorothy drew on quotations primarily from Margaret Anna Cusack’s autobiographies – The Nun of Kenmare (1888) and The Story of My Life (1893) as well as quotations from letters and memoirs on file in the Archives of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

She also reflected on the efforts of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace to implement their deepened understanding of their founding charism: to promote social justice as a way to peace.

1 | To Pay a Price

The cost of peace is suffering, and each degree of suffering pays its own price tag. Peace has been sought through kindness to the poor, but:

The price is too often bureaucratic indulgence and governmental corruption which causes the oppression of women, children, the elderly – And the consequent rise of people in solidarity to work for structural change.

Peace has been sought through fidelity to a commitment, but:

Fidelity is a service to life, not always a commitment to one life style or to one person. And so, divorce frees a man and woman from the bondage of a non-life-giving relationship.

The function of religious vows is interpreted differently:

Obedience involves a process of discerning with others how to assume responsibility for developing one's life and choice of work.

Poverty regards all things as gifts from God to be used justly for the good of the human family.

Celibacy is a commitment to a way of loving and being loved which calls one to non-possessive, life-giving relationships.

Patriarchal constrictions on the equality of women are seen as a means to control by power rather than by the creativity of the Spirit. And so, women must work to overturn the injustices in male-dominated systems.

Peace has been sought through exploitation of technology in excessive national defense, but:

Threats of nuclear war and genocide continue to destroy the dream.

Peace has been sought through a confirmed witness to an established church, but:

The price is often soul-searching questions ... misunderstandings... alienation.

A life that has meaning is more than birth ... existence ... struggle ... death.

It echoes a voice that continues to be heard.