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Sister Katherine Siegel, F.M.S.C., who served as moderator of the lay associates of her province, died March 10 at the infirmary of Mount St. Francis, the motherhouse of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Peekskill. She was 72.
She also had been a staff member at Assumption School and at Mount St. Francis and Villa St. Francis, all in Peekskill. She had also served in child care and in social outreach in New Jersey.
Sister Katherine was featured in the Nov. 23, 2017 issue of CNY in an article about the Franciscan Sisters of Peekskill praying for her after she was diagnosed with inoperable stage IV melanoma last October.
The Peekskill Franciscans were praying that Sister Katherine would be the recipient of a miracle that would further advance the canonization cause of Franciscan Father Gregorio Fioravanti, O.F.M., the Italian founder of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.
The Vatican, on Nov. 9, had announced that Pope Francis had recognized Father Fioravanti’s heroic virtue, advancing him on the path to sainthood and declaring him Venerable.
“I’m just very humbled of all the prayers that are being offered up for me, and that the congregation has taken this on through emails to the rest of the congregation—700 sisters in my congregation praying for me. We’re in 22 countries,” Sister Katherine said. “Plus, other kinds of people praying for me.”
Born in Yonkers, she was the youngest of six children. Before entering the order, she was a public school teacher’s aide and disciplinarian in Harrison.
She was in her 50s when she received a calling after school while praying before the Blessed Sacrament in the adoration chapel at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Port Chester. At the time, she belonged to St. Gregory the Great parish in Harrison.
She entered the Franciscan Sisters of Peekskill in 2001 and professed final vows in 2008.
A Funeral Mass was offered March 13 at the chapel of Mount St. Francis in Peekskill. Burial followed in the sisters’ cemetery there.
