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Sister Janice McLaughlin, M.M., who served in southern Africa for nearly 40 years and later was president of the Maryknoll Sisters, died March 7 at Maryknoll in Ossining. She was 79.
Sister Janice received her first overseas mission assignment to Kenya, East Africa, in 1969. The next year, she relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, and spent seven years as communications coordinator in the Catholic Secretariat Office for the Catholic Church of Kenya, coordinator of the Communications Department of the Bishops’ Conference, and was responsible for radio, TV, press, film and audiovisual works.
Sister Janice was assigned to Rhodesia/Mozambique in 1979-1980 as press secretary for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. She also worked in a refugee ministry. During this time, she was arrested for reporting on war crimes committed in the country. After being placed in solitary confinement for three weeks, she was deported back to Maryknoll.
From 1981 to 1992, Sister Janice returned to Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe, and served as education consultant to the president and publications/curriculum development officer with the Zimbabwe Foundation regarding education and communications.
In 1992, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining in the communications office.
She again returned to Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998, where she was involved in adult education and peace building until 2009. That year, she was elected to a six-year term as president of her congregation..
In 2014, Albertus Magnus College, New Haven, Conn., conferred on her the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for “her work in Kenya and Zimbabwe for many years to promote peace and reconciliation and to advocate for the poor and for the rights of young girls to attend school.”
In 2015, she returned to Harare, with a commitment to work against human trafficking. Last fall, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center.
From 1964 to 1968, Sister Janice worked in the Maryknoll Sisters Communication Office at Maryknoll, and she also organized the “War Against Poverty Program” in Ossining.
Born in Pittsburgh, she entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1961. She professed final vows in 1972 in Kitale, Kenya. She earned a bachelor’s degree in theology, anthropology and sociology from Marquette University, Milwaukee. She later studied at the University of Zimbabwe and received a master’s and a Ph.D. in religious studies.
Sister Janice donated her body to science. A Funeral Mass was offered March 12 at Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center. Her cremains will be interred at Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery at a later date.
