Associated Alumnae & Alumni of the Sacred Heart (AASH) named Mary Margaret “Peggy” McDonnell, RSCJ, honoree of the 2023 Woman of Conscience Award. Sister McDonnell was honored at the 44th AASH National Conference held this year in Portsmouth, Rhode Island,
May 18-20.
AASH began the Woman of Conscience Award in 1991. Their website reads:
“Woman of Conscience” was the theme of the 28th AASH biennial conference held in New York in 1991, at which a Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) from the host region (East), Sister Joan Kirby, was recognized by the conference committee for her outstanding impact on the lives of others. Since then, the Woman of Conscience Award has been used to honor and thank an outstanding RSCJ in the host region during the conference for her shining example and for the total gift of self in the service of others.
A religious of the Sacred Heart since 1971, Mary Margaret McDonnell, RSCJ, founded The Center for Ethics and Advocacy in Illinois in 1995. A certified nurse practitioner in community health, she worked in Boston’s neighborhood health centers, providing adult patient care, including providing care at Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart and Newton College. She obtained a master's degree in religion at Newton Theological School, and later a master’s degree in theology in ethics at Harvard Divinity School with a concentration in faith and ethics.
After years in corporate health care her journey led her to founding The Center for Ethics and Advocacy in Healthcare, a 501c3 in a North Chicago suburb. This, her main life’s work, focused on health care ethics education at the table of life: in the neighborhood, the home, wherever families struggle with “health decision” issues.
In addition, Sister McDonnell developed an internship program in community health care ethics and advocacy. She has been given multiple awards for service in health care, and human rights, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from St. Francis University in Pennsylvania. She’s held multiple speaking engagements, consulting engagements, written many publications, and is the author of The Golden Thread.
Sister McDonnell’s gifts of self in the service of others has had an outstanding impact on the lives of many.
Text courtesy of AASH, featured in Esprit de Coeur
