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Sister Joan Bland, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who was an author and founder of the Education for Parish Service lay ministry training program, died June 29 at St. Vincent Care Center in Emmitsburg, Md. She was 90.
A Memorial Mass was celebrated Aug. 3 in Notre Dame Chapel at Trinity University in Washington. Sister Joan donated her body to science, so there was no Funeral Mass.
She founded Education for Parish Service, known as EPS, in 1978, and during the next 25 years served as full-time director of the program and president of its foundation.
EPS has grown into a national and international model for the education of lay women and men in parish ministry.
In 1993, Sister Joan was EPS development program director and ex officio vice president, and from 1994 to 1997 she was director of the program's Cardinal Newman Center for the Laity in Naples, Fla. She was a consultant to the center, 1997-2004.
Among her honors, she received the 1988 Distinguished Church Leadership Award from Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA) and in 1989 received The Catholic University of America's Alumni Achievement Award in the field of pastoral service.
Born in Boulder, Colo., she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1938 and received a bachelor's degree from what was then Trinity College in Washington that year. She earned a master's degree from Villanova University and a doctorate in history from Catholic University.
From 1941 to 1948 she taught in Philadelphia's archdiocesan schools, and from 1948 to 1978 she served at Trinity in several capacities, including faculty and chair of the history department, assistant to the president for special projects, superior of the Notre Dame community at the school and vice president.
Sister Joan was the author of the 1951 book "Hibernian Crusade: The Story of the Catholic Total Abstinence League" and the editor of the three-volume "The Pastoral Vision of John Paul II," published in 1982.
She is survived by a half sister, Virginia Brewer. - CNS
