For Sister Eileen Walsh, ministry is even more fruitful after 50 years
Each month, Tacoma Dominican Sister Eileen Walsh writes letters to people she’s never met — death row inmates at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla and two inmates in other states. They include references to sports and her life as a nun, words of encouragement, Scripture verses and tie-ins to God’s love. The letters are a part of her ongoing advocacy against the death penalty.
One inmate recently wrote asking to get on her “mailing list” because he was “the new kid on the block” and looking for moral support like that which his prisonmate said he’d received through Sister Eileen’s letters.
The petite, 71-year-old, Irish-American nun with a sweet voice and sense of humor said she has always opposed the death penalty, but she became more active in her advocacy in the last two decades. Sister Eileen realizes capital punishment is a divisive issue among Catholics and in wider society, but she considers it a pro-life issue since “it’s taking another life; it’s violence.”
“We’re kind of playing God in that we’re telling someone when their journey is going to be over,” Sister Eileen said. “And I think that’s God’s role, not our role.”
“I think it’s really hard for people to separate the person from the crimes,” she added. But the nun aims to do that with her letter-writing. She gets inspiration from the inmates’ responses. Some have written saying she’s helped them have inner conversions. One man said he’d shared with his wife the Scripture passages Sister Eileen sent him.
“I think we as sisters are called to be prophets,” she said. “We can’t always agree with the mainstream. You need to work with those on the fringe, empower the powerless and be the voice for the voiceless.”
‘A real go-getter’
Besides working against capital punishment, Sister Eileen also supports the Tacoma Dominicans’ anti-human trafficking efforts and regularly calls the state legislative hotline to support certain bills and issues. This issue-oriented ministry is the latest chapter in her 50 years as a Tacoma Dominican.
Eileen Walsh was born in Chicago and is the oldest of 11 children. When she was 3 or 4, her father left the Navy and moved the family to the tiny city of Roy, near Tacoma, and later to Tacoma proper. Eileen went to Catholic schools and had Tacoma Dominicans among her teachers.
When Eileen finished her freshman year of high school, the Walshes moved to Anaheim, Calif. But Eileen kept in touch with the Dominicans and returned to Washington after graduating, having discerned a call to religious life.
She became Sister Mary Esther when she took temporary vows with the Tacoma Dominicans on Aug. 4, 1964, at Mount St. Dominic Convent. She later changed her name back to Eileen in the post-Vatican II era when keeping baptismal names became common.
Her first 13 years as a nun were spent teaching at Holy Cross School in Tacoma, Our Lady of the Lake School in Seattle, and California Catholic schools. Later, she taught religious education, worked as a grief counselor, facilitated Alzheimer’s support groups, and spent many years as a hospital and hospice chaplain.
“I would say the hallmark of Sister Eileen Walsh’s life has been her care and concern for the people of God and the fact that she’s able to stay connected to so many people in her life through her various ministries,” said Sister Sharon Casey, president of the Tacoma Dominicans.
Providence Sister Joan Campbell, who worked with Sister Eileen and others to craft a corporate stance against the death penalty for the Providence Sisters, calls Sister Eileen “a real go-getter” who takes the time to thoroughly study and research an issue.
“Really anything she puts her heart into, she’s 200 percent into,” she said.
A gift in a diagnosis
Today, Sister Eileen’s advocacy work is done mostly from St. Joseph’s Residence, a retirement home for religious sisters on a West Seattle hilltop overlooking the city. That’s because she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the late 1990s.
The illness has slowed her down some, keeping her from driving and requiring her to use a walker, which she calls her sidekick. But Sister Eileen remains upbeat, following her HEAL motto, which stands for hope and humor, exercise, attitude, and love for God, others, self and the world.
She believes you “don’t dwell on what you can’t do but dwell on what you can do” and takes inspiration from St. Thérèse of Lisieux in doing “little things well” and “with great love.”
When she couldn’t attend Catholic Advocacy Day this year, she prayed throughout the day for the participants at the state Capitol. She helps with grief counseling by calling and writing families who have lost loved ones and tries to be an encouraging force to others in a Parkinson’s support group she belongs to.
Sister Eileen makes sure to exercise daily and loves the rhythm of prayer that surrounds her at St. Joseph’s Residence. She starts and ends her day with the Liturgy of the Hours, is in a rosary group and goes to daily Mass along with other devotional activities.
She cherishes friendships with fellow nuns and staffers at St. Joseph’s, loves playing bingo, watching sports, and dropping puns and jokes into conversation. She finds herself feeling even closer to God in this chapter of life, seeing him as her companion and calling him Emmanuel, “God is with us.”
Her humor in retirement is firmly intact. St. Joseph’s staffers know her as the nun who acted the parts of a disoriented and an injured resident in two employee orientation videos.
To the Alzheimer’s support group she once facilitated and still keeps in touch with, she’s Sister Rainbow, nicknamed for the multi-hued clown suit she’d wear on special occasions. She also jokes you can call her Sherlock Holmes when she’s looking for and sending along news stories to the human trafficking and death penalty committees she’s on.
For her golden jubilee celebration in June, she’ll be wearing the same white dress and red jewelry she wore while strutting down the runway during last December’s Providence Mount St. Vincent “Silver Bells” charity luncheon.
“I don’t call it retired, it’s ‘retread,’” she said. “I’m a person who illness has made better, and I think I can teach others through my illness.”
Sister Eileen Walsh is one of more than 30 religious sisters celebrating special anniversaries this year. Read more about them here.
Northwest Catholic - June 2014