Sister Margaret Mary Coakley, R.S.C.J.

Sister Margaret Mary Coakley, R.S.C.J., a novice mistress for the Religious of the Sacred Heart and a social justice activist, died July 2 at Mary Manning Walsh Home in Manhattan. She was 91.

She also served as provincial of the former New York Province, 1968-1974. Under her leadership, Sister Margaret Mary—known as Mavi—helped to forge new paths for the Society after the Second Vatican Council, including a renewed focus on ministries to the poor.

She was novice mistress from 1959 to 1967. She also taught at Sacred Heart schools in Michigan, Rhode Island and at Kenwood, Albany.

In 1976, she joined the national staff of the Theology in the Americas project, where she edited and published scholarly works. She worked at the women’s Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in Central America, 1983-1985.

From 1985 to 1994, she was assistant director of the Center for Educational Design and Communication, a ministry of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C. In 1994, when she was well past retirement age, she began a ministry coordinating assistance for senior citizens in Manhattan.

Her active ministry ended in 2006, when she was struck by a car and seriously injured.

Born in Cleveland, she entered the religious congregation in 1942 and made final vows in 1950. She held a bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College and a master’s from Providence College.

A Funeral Mass was offered July 8 at Mary Manning Walsh Home, with burial in the Society’s cemetery in Albany.