A True Franciscan Peacemaker

By JOHN WOODS

Editing a newspaper can sometimes get a little messy, especially when mistakes are made. Try as we might, and we do take plenty of steps to avoid them, errors at times do find their way into the pages of Catholic New York. Over the years, I have made my share. It is always a humbling experience.

But I'm getting ahead of the story, so let's go back to the beginning.

This all began when Catholic New York left out the name of Sister Irene Freely, F.S.P., from a parish profile in our Sept. 27 issue of St. Nicholas of Tolentine in the Bronx, where she is a parish social worker. Unfortunately, we also mixed up information about the residences of several women religious who live in the parish; Sister Irene in fact lives in a private residence in the parish neighborhood.

Normally this type of mistake calls for a correction, or a clarification, of the erroneous material. We were well on our way to putting one in this issue until I made a discovery, and on the feast of St. Francis no less. That was when I noticed the name on a press release that had been sitting on my desk for weeks. It was about a certain Franciscan Sister of Peace who had recently received the Peacemaker Award at a national meeting of the Franciscan Federation.

If you haven't figured it out, the honoree was none other than Sister Irene Freely. I had a good laugh when I realized who she was. When I decided to write this column, I hoped Sister Irene would find the humor in the situation. After all, the last time we spoke, she wasn't too pleased with Catholic New York.

When I explained my discovery, she was game for our interview, which turned into an hourlong conversation. I learned about what she does at St. Nicholas of Tolentine, where she has served for the past 10 years. The whole time she has run the parish food pantry. She started out doing social work at the senior citizens center that is part of the Tolentine Zeiser Community Life Center at St. Nicholas. In more recent years, she has broadened her social work ministry to include the entire parish and others in the neighborhood as well. Her job brings her into contact with "a wide spectrum" of people who need assistance, she said. Those whom she can't help herself, she often refers to other agencies.

When I asked Sister Irene about her other assignments over the years, she gave me fair warning that there have been more than a few in her 48 years as a nun. She mentioned a storefront ministry in Newburgh that she conducted along with sisters from different religious communities. She also spent six years as a social worker with a visiting nurse agency run by the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor in the Bronx. Then there were her years as a group mother and case worker at the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Home, also in the Bronx. She also taught for her first four years as a religious.

Sister Irene spoke in detail of the seven years that she served in Guatemala, mostly from 1989 to 1996 and for a few months in 1987. She was assigned to the town of Cabanas in the southern part of the Central American country. There she established a feeding program where kids could have a nutritious main meal for the day.

Because children there often had to help their families by working in the fields, many did not go to school. Sister Irene asked parents what amount of financial compensation would make it possible for parents to allow their kids to switch from crops to the classroom. It was agreed that $5 per month would be a fair price. The Christian Brothers came through with a grant that enabled 70 to 80 kids to get an education. Sister Irene arranged for local teens and young adults involved in a prayer group to do Christian service as tutors to the younger students.

She told me her time in Guatemala also gave her an opportunity to achieve two longtime goals: to learn Spanish and to live in another country and get a sense of what it was like. When I asked if she had ever been afraid, either in Guatemala or in any of her other assignments, she said, "If I was afraid, I couldn't do the work. It's been my experience that when you become known, people watch out for you. The more you have interaction with people of different cultures and races, the less anxiety."

It seemed to me the Franciscans made the right pick in awarding Sister Irene their Peacemaker Award, which honored her for following the Franciscan charism of "right relationships" in caring for each other while seeking justice for the poor and those in need.

And to think, if our story about St. Nicholas of Tolentine had been error free, I might not have ever had the chance to speak with Sister Irene and share her personal story with you.