On this week’s 51%, we kick off our series speaking to women religious leaders and celebrate the different ways that women worship. Sister Danielle Bonetti teaches the importance of worship through service, and the women behind the Saratoga Springs United Methodist Church share their hopes for the future of the UMC.

Guests: Sister Danielle Bonetti, Providence Coordinator of the Justice Ministry for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet; Kathleen Ryan, priest with the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests; Heather Williams (pastor) and Alison Klock (associate pastor) of the Saratoga Springs United Methodist Church

51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

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You’re listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women’s issues and experiences. Thanks for joining us, I’m Jesse King. For many of us, the topic of religion plays a considerable role in our lives, whether you’re born and raised in your beliefs, “newly reformed,” devout, agnostic, or even atheistic. Our feelings on the afterlife have a way of guiding our life paths - but many of today’s mainstream religions are, at least traditionally, male-led. So, with the holiday season in full swing, consider this part one of a series speaking to women religious leaders about why they worship, how they worship, and the issues they care about most in their respective faiths. Because increasingly so, women are finding ways to take part and lead.

Today we’ll start in Latham, New York, at the provincial house of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, a Roman Catholic group of women religious that traces back to the mid-1600s in France. The Latham headquarters serves primarily as a home for retired sisters, but it also houses its administrative offices, including the office of Sister Danielle Bonetti, the group’s Province Coordinator of the Justice Ministry. 

“The Sisters of St. Joseph were founded in 1650. In those days, in the 1600s, if a woman entered a religious life, there was only one form of religious life, and that was cloistered convents. And so they have to spend their whole time praying and just living behind a cloister,” Bonetti explains. “What Father Medaille wanted to do was have little cells of women dedicated to serving others, who he called ‘the dear neighbor.’ There was a strong Jesuit influence, and what they call ‘ignatian spirituality,’ so that attracted me a great deal. Because I’ve always been attracted to the ignatian way of praying and imaging God.” 

Bonetti says the Roman Catholic faith was always a major part of her life. She went to join the Sisters of St. Joseph at just 18 years old, with hopes of serving in one of several ministries. The Sisters of St. Joseph notably started Albany College of Saint Rose in 1920, and played a role in the development of St. Mary’s Hospital (now St. Mary’s Healthcare) in Amsterdam. 

“But I was always wanting to do pastoral work, to be out with people,” says Bonetti. “So I was lucky, I got to do the very beginnings of parish work, of Sisters being in parish work. I was a religious ed director. I was always in the Albany diocese, and I was out in Oneonta for five years, and then in Troy. So I organized all the religious ed for the children who didn’t go to Catholic school.

What did that work look like? 

In those days I mainly worked to train the lay people who were gonna be what we would call the ‘catechist,’ or the religion teacher. And in Oneonta, it was kind of exciting. It was a very rural parish, in the city of Oneonta we had the mother parish, and then we had these little missions. And so every day I was in a different little town, and I had a group of, usually, mothers who were (at that time) home during the day, and they would be the teachers. These children would be released fr