By: roberto r. treviño  (Page 9/14)

These trends sensitized Catholic sisters as more of them gained exposure to new ideas when they trained for social work in both secular and religious-affiliated universities outside of Texas. Sister Immaculate’s graduate studies, for instance, took her to Columbia University in 1941; the next year Sister Mary Rachel Moreno began her studies there as well, eventually finishing at the Catholic University of America where, in the late 1940s, Sister Mary Nelda Gonzales also studied. Gentemann interview; Valdez, Missionary Catechists , 61; “Stella Maris Clinic,” typewritten ms., ACDP. These were pivotal experiences for White and Mexican-American sisters alike. For one thing, graduate education and the professionalization experience challenged them intellectually and philosophically. They were forced to consider Protestant, atheist, and other perspectives about the nature and resolution of social problems. Sister Immaculate, for example, recalled how crucial her graduate studies had been in developing her Catholic philosophy of social work. Equally important, these experiences gave Mexican-American sisters a chance to “prove” themselves in the eyes of their congregational leaders. Significantly, the congregational leadership consciously undertook this new direction. They “felt their people should go beyond a Catholic environment,” Sister Immaculate emphasized. Gentemann interview. The upshot of all this was a reconsideration of the strategies used to fight the ravages of social marginalization. These new experiences also help explain why the sisters at the Girls Club recognized the ultimately negative impact of the Homemaking Project, and discontinued it. They also reveal much of the thrust behind the founding of the Worden School of Social Service.

Sisters Philothea Thiry and Angelique Ayers reflected the attitudinal and policy changes that characterized the social ministry of Catholic sisters in the 1930s and 1940s. These two women used their influence as leaders of their institutions, the Congregation of Divine Providence and Our Lady of the Lake College, to create the Worden School of Social Service as a better weapon to fight poverty in Mexican communities. Before the founding of the Worden School there was a serious shortage of professionally trained social workers in San Antonio despite an obvious need, largely because there were no such training programs in the Texas higher education system. As Sister Thiry explained,

[t]he School nearest us is Tulane, some six hundred miles to the East. To the West, the nearest is in Los Angeles, fourteen hundred miles away, and to the North, there is the St. Louis University School of Social Work, some eleven hundred miles away. Thiry to Lucey, February 1942, quoted in “The Worden School Self-Study,” 3, AOLLU.

Apparently, the idea for creating a school of social work in San Antonio sprang from informal talks between Mother Philothea, Sister Angelique, and the bishop of Amarillo, Texas, Robert E. Lucey, in 1936. Lucey believed that “many social problems were related to the lack of professional social workers,” and he urged the sisters to consider establishing a school of social work at OLLC. Mother Philothea accepted the challenge and, with Lucey’s relentless prodding and formidable support as Archbishop of San Antonio, she and the Sisters of Divine Providence made the school a reality. Valdez, Missionary Catechists , 59; Stephen A. Privett, The U.S. Catholic Church and its Hispanic Members: The Pastoral Vision of Archbishop Robert E. Lucey (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1988), 142; Gentemann interview.