Sister Rose Thering's Battle Against Antisemitism
Alan Silberstein Sister Rose Thering’sBattle against Antisemitism Who WasSisterRose? Who was this woman often called a “feistynun?”¹ Sister Rose Thering (1920– 2006) was amemberofthe order of Dominican Sisters,who devoted the majority of her long life to the fight against injusticeand discrimination, and in particu- lar,antisemitism in the Roman Catholic Church. Her graduateschool research on the treatment of minorities, especiallythe Jews, in Catholic textbooks directly impacted NostraAetate. This document was the Declaration of the Second Vati- can Council on the Relation of the Church with Non-ChristianReligions,promulgat- ed by Pope Paul VI in 1965, which removed the pariahlabel from the Jewishre- ligion in RomanCatholic teaching. Forthe next forty years, she worked hard, and effectively,toensure that church teachingmatched the new framework. Working from her base at Seton Hall University, aRoman Catholic school in New Jersey,she brought Jews and Christians to studytogether.She became achief proponent of Holocaust educa- tion, abattler for Jewish causes, and aproponent for Israel. Perhaps her most lasting contribution was to promoteastate education mandate requiringthat the lessons of the Holocaust be taught at every grade level in her home state; arequirement which has since been emulatedinseveral of the most populous Americanstates. Sister Rose was raised in the earlytwentieth century,inalarge,religiously observant German-American Roman Catholic familyinPlain, Wisconsin, asmall rural town in the Midwest.Atayoungage,she decided to become anun, like three of her aunts; and also, ateacher.She selectedthe Dominicans rather than her aunts’ Franciscan order,because this would assure her the opportunity to become ateacher.² Rose Thering entered religious life at ageeighteen, in 1938, and took her vows two years later.For the next seventeen years, she worked as ateacher and administrator in Catholic schools in the Midwest.She also earned her mas- Morecorrectly, she was a “religious sister,” as her order was non-cloistered.
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