Sister Antoinette Gutzler, M.M., the Brooklyn-born president-elect of Maryknoll Sisters, celebrated 50 years with the congregation this past Sunday, Oct. 12, at a special Mass offered at Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, N.Y.

A theologian, who has been teaching at the Fu Jen University Faculty of Theology of St. Robert Bellarmine, Taipei, Taiwan, Sister Antoinette will assume the presidency of Maryknoll Sisters on Sunday, Jan. 4 at the Center. Six other members of the congregation also marked 50 years with Maryknoll Sisters at the Mass.

Sister Antoinette entered Maryknoll in 1964 at its Topsfield, Mass., novitiate from St. Gabriel’s parish, East Elmhurst. She is a graduate of Fordham University, the Bronx, where she earned an M.A., M. Phil. and Ph.D in systematic theology.

In 1971, she received her first overseas assignment to Tanzania, East Africa. After studying Swahili in Musoma, she was assigned to Mwanza where, from 1972 to 1974, she taught religion to secondary school students and helped begin a center for high school students. She made her final vows there on March 10, 1973.

She returned to the U.S., working first as a secretary in the congregation’s education department from January to November, 1975, followed by two years speaking about the congregation on behalf of its Development Department at local churches and schools in New England.

She was then assigned to Taiwan in 1978. She studied both Mandarin and Taiwanese and worked as director of the Solidarity Young Workers Center from 1979 to 1988.

Following four years as director of personnel at Maryknoll Sisters Center and six years earning her graduate degrees at Fordham, she returned to Taiwan in 2001, where she began teaching at the School of Theology at Fu Jen University.

Sister Antoinette’s recent publications include: “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: ‘Women Matters’ as an Asian Theological Concern” (2011); and “Am I My Sister’s Keeper?” (2010).