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Anita Caspary dies at 95; 'rebel nun' founded Immaculate Heart Community
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Matthew Kruk
Oct 16, 2011, 1:28:19 AM10/16/11
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http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-anita-caspary-20111016,0,4520954.story
Anita Caspary dies at 95; 'rebel nun' founded Immaculate Heart Community
The L.A. order she led, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was
the largest Catholic order in the U.S. to sever ties with the Vatican.
By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times
October 16, 2011
During a showdown with the Catholic Church in the late 1960s, Anita
Caspary and the Los Angeles order she led, the Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, were cast as "rebel nuns" for progressive reforms that
included abandoning the nun's habit and suspending a fixed time for
prayer.
Although the moves were made in response to a call from the Vatican to
modernize, conservative Cardinal James Francis McIntyre of the Los
Angeles Archdiocese barred the sisters from teaching in the Catholic
schools he oversaw.
The sisters appealed to Rome, but when the Vatican squelched their
modernization efforts, more than 300 of them made what was an
"unthinkable choice" for most nuns and asked to be released from their
vows, Caspary later wrote.
As of last year, it remained the largest Catholic order in the U.S. to
sever ties with the Vatican, according to the 2010 edition of "Unveiled:
The Hidden Lives of Nuns."
The ex-nuns came together to found the Immaculate Heart Community, an
independent ecumenical organization that marked its 40th anniversary
last year. It has 160 members today.
Caspary, who served as the order's final leader and the community's
first president, died Oct. 5 at the group's retirement home in Los
Angeles, said Lenore Dowling, an organization spokeswoman. A cause of
death was not released. Caspary was 95.
"While I saw the break as inevitable, I didn't really want it," Caspary
said in 1970 in Time magazine, which featured her and a former bishop on
the cover below the headline "The Catholic Exodus: Why Priests and Nuns
Are Quitting."
"But I wondered how much energy you could spend fighting authority when
you could spend that same energy doing what you should be doing,"
Caspary told the magazine.
Many community members continued careers in education while others
pursued law, social work, inner-city development or other endeavors.
Caspary served as its president until 1973.
"She had intellectual strength," said Susan Maloney, a scholar on women
in religion who cared for Caspary in recent years. "Her leadership, her
personality style had a demeanor that was inviting and challenging."
Anita Marie Caspary was born in 1915 in Herrick, S.D., the third of
eight children of Jacob and Marie Caspary. Two of her siblings died very
young.
She grew up in Los Angeles in an actively Catholic family and attended
Immaculate Heart College, founded by the sisters. As she worked toward
her bachelor's degree in English, Caspary developed an appreciation for
the independent-minded nuns.
"Even then they weren't all in lock step," she told Time in 1970.
After graduating in 1936, she entered the convent and began teaching
English at Immaculate Heart High School, established by the order in
1906 in Los Feliz.
She earned a master's degree in English at USC in the early 1940s and a
doctorate in English literature at Stanford University in 1948.
While wearing her nun's habit at Stanford, she felt it created both "a
distance and mystery," she wrote in her memoir.
Upon returning to Immaculate Heart College, she chaired the English
department and was the graduate dean for much of the 1950s. In 1958, she
became president of the college and served until 1963, when she was
elected to lead the Immaculate Heart order.
The order's most famous alumna, Corita Kent - the artist best known for
the "Love" stamp - said of Caspary in 1970 in Time: "She is a quiet
leader, perfect for the age of Aquarius, when, you know, there are no
big heads."
As the order relaxed the strict rules that governed convent life,
sisters were allowed to use their given names. She dropped her religious
name, Sister Humiliata.
In the 1970s, she taught at the Franciscan School of Theology and the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Returning to Los Angeles, she worked with the Peace and Justice Center
of Southern California in the 1980s and also taught courses on feminist
spirituality at the Immaculate Heart College Center, established after
Immaculate Heart College closed in 1980.
At 85, Caspary secured a grant to teach poetry to older women who lived
in her retirement home.
Decades after the order's dramatic struggle, she saw it in historical
terms, writing in her memoir: "In many ways, we foreshadowed the
contemporary (and vibrant) feminist movement within the Catholic
Church."
Caspary is survived by three sisters, Gretchen De Stefano of Los
Alamitos, Marion Roxstrom of Newport Beach and Ursula Caspary Frankel of
Costa Mesa; and a brother, Gerard Caspary of Las Vegas.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. Saturday at Immaculate Heart
High School, 5515 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles.
valerie...@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
Anita Caspary dies at 95; 'rebel nun' founded Immaculate Heart Community
The L.A. order she led, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was
the largest Catholic order in the U.S. to sever ties with the Vatican.
By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times
October 16, 2011
During a showdown with the Catholic Church in the late 1960s, Anita
Caspary and the Los Angeles order she led, the Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, were cast as "rebel nuns" for progressive reforms that
included abandoning the nun's habit and suspending a fixed time for
prayer.
Although the moves were made in response to a call from the Vatican to
modernize, conservative Cardinal James Francis McIntyre of the Los
Angeles Archdiocese barred the sisters from teaching in the Catholic
schools he oversaw.
The sisters appealed to Rome, but when the Vatican squelched their
modernization efforts, more than 300 of them made what was an
"unthinkable choice" for most nuns and asked to be released from their
vows, Caspary later wrote.
As of last year, it remained the largest Catholic order in the U.S. to
sever ties with the Vatican, according to the 2010 edition of "Unveiled:
The Hidden Lives of Nuns."
The ex-nuns came together to found the Immaculate Heart Community, an
independent ecumenical organization that marked its 40th anniversary
last year. It has 160 members today.
Caspary, who served as the order's final leader and the community's
first president, died Oct. 5 at the group's retirement home in Los
Angeles, said Lenore Dowling, an organization spokeswoman. A cause of
death was not released. Caspary was 95.
"While I saw the break as inevitable, I didn't really want it," Caspary
said in 1970 in Time magazine, which featured her and a former bishop on
the cover below the headline "The Catholic Exodus: Why Priests and Nuns
Are Quitting."
"But I wondered how much energy you could spend fighting authority when
you could spend that same energy doing what you should be doing,"
Caspary told the magazine.
Many community members continued careers in education while others
pursued law, social work, inner-city development or other endeavors.
Caspary served as its president until 1973.
"She had intellectual strength," said Susan Maloney, a scholar on women
in religion who cared for Caspary in recent years. "Her leadership, her
personality style had a demeanor that was inviting and challenging."
Anita Marie Caspary was born in 1915 in Herrick, S.D., the third of
eight children of Jacob and Marie Caspary. Two of her siblings died very
young.
She grew up in Los Angeles in an actively Catholic family and attended
Immaculate Heart College, founded by the sisters. As she worked toward
her bachelor's degree in English, Caspary developed an appreciation for
the independent-minded nuns.
"Even then they weren't all in lock step," she told Time in 1970.
After graduating in 1936, she entered the convent and began teaching
English at Immaculate Heart High School, established by the order in
1906 in Los Feliz.
She earned a master's degree in English at USC in the early 1940s and a
doctorate in English literature at Stanford University in 1948.
While wearing her nun's habit at Stanford, she felt it created both "a
distance and mystery," she wrote in her memoir.
Upon returning to Immaculate Heart College, she chaired the English
department and was the graduate dean for much of the 1950s. In 1958, she
became president of the college and served until 1963, when she was
elected to lead the Immaculate Heart order.
The order's most famous alumna, Corita Kent - the artist best known for
the "Love" stamp - said of Caspary in 1970 in Time: "She is a quiet
leader, perfect for the age of Aquarius, when, you know, there are no
big heads."
As the order relaxed the strict rules that governed convent life,
sisters were allowed to use their given names. She dropped her religious
name, Sister Humiliata.
In the 1970s, she taught at the Franciscan School of Theology and the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Returning to Los Angeles, she worked with the Peace and Justice Center
of Southern California in the 1980s and also taught courses on feminist
spirituality at the Immaculate Heart College Center, established after
Immaculate Heart College closed in 1980.
At 85, Caspary secured a grant to teach poetry to older women who lived
in her retirement home.
Decades after the order's dramatic struggle, she saw it in historical
terms, writing in her memoir: "In many ways, we foreshadowed the
contemporary (and vibrant) feminist movement within the Catholic
Church."
Caspary is survived by three sisters, Gretchen De Stefano of Los
Alamitos, Marion Roxstrom of Newport Beach and Ursula Caspary Frankel of
Costa Mesa; and a brother, Gerard Caspary of Las Vegas.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. Saturday at Immaculate Heart
High School, 5515 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles.
valerie...@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
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