Sister Anne Lorraine Hanna, CSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph for 66 years, died on Nov. 1. Born Joan Lorraine to James and Florence Hanna, Sister Anne grew up in Queens, where she attended St. Joan of Arc Elementary School and The Mary Louis Academy. After graduation, and inspired by the sisters she met in high school, Sister Anne entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1955 and received her B.S. in Education from Brentwood College. Her ardent love of children and her concern for their well-being within the family structure motivated her to earn a master’s degree in Childhood/Adolescent Psychology from Catholic University in America.

Sister Anne taught on the elementary level at St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Richmond Hill, and Sacred Heart Seminary, Hempstead, New York, as well as at St. Joseph College, Brooklyn. In 1969, her focus took her to Suffolk County and St. Peter the Apostle and St. Sylvester’s parishes, as Religious Education Coordinator. Her tireless and compassionate presence extended to her assignments to the Diocese of Rockville Centre in the Office of Catechesis & Worship and as the family life director for Suffolk County. Sister Anne also served for 10 happy and memorable years as the program director of the Mercy Center in Sayville, New York, where her varied talents and interpersonal skills enriched all who were fortunate to benefit from her wisdom and compassion. Her joyful countenance always radiated a peace born from a personal and deep relationship with her God and a prayerful commitment to her religious community.

Sister Anne was a talented artist, through which she expressed her deep faith in the grandeur of God in all creation and our Earth community. Examples of her work grace the walls of the first-floor hall in the newly renovated St. Joseph’s Convent in Brentwood.

Her wake and Mass of Christian burial were celebrated by Rev. James Wood on Nov. 10, in Sacred Heart Chapel, Brentwood, followed by burial in Calvary Cemetery on the convent grounds.

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Founding Director of USCCB Secretariat For Black Catholics Was ‘Great Advocate’

BALTIMORE (CNS) — A funeral Mass was offered Nov. 23 at St. Peter Claver Church in West Baltimore for Beverly A. Carroll, a social justice advocate who spent her life raising her voice for African American Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the United States and the world. Carroll, the founding director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Black Catholics, died Nov. 13. She was 75.

“She was a great advocate for the community, for the church, for African Americans in the church,” said Josephite Father Ray P. Bomberger, pastor of St. Peter Claver Parish, to which Carroll belonged her whole life.

“She was interested in the church, the people of the church, what was going on, (and) how we could do it better,” he added.

Father Bomberger praised Carroll’s devotion to her church, as well as her interest in education and social justice. Carroll, he noted, was instrumental in the rebirth of the National Black Catholic Congress. Under the leadership of Bishop John H. Ricard, a former auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, the congress, which met five times in the late 19th century, was reactivated. It first met in 1987 and has continued to gather every five years. One result of that first meeting, according to NBCC documents, was the formation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, of which Carroll served as founding director.

In addition, she served as a staff member to the Subcommittee for African American Affairs at the USCCB. Carroll also led a delegation of African American Catholic women to an international meeting of women in Johannesburg as well as participating in a conference held in Nigeria to implement the U.S. bishops’ document on solidarity with Africa.

Carroll is survived by her son Rudolph Weeks II, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.