Sister Catherine DeVito

Current Ministry Location: Eastern Region, U.S. 

Sister Catherine, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, made her Final Vows as a Maryknoll Sister on August 25, 2007.  Sister Catherine was a member of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland, Ohio, for thirty years.  She worked as a teacher, then as a member of a diocesan team in El Salvador and later as a pastoral worker in Mexico for six years.

Returning from Nueva Rosita, Mexico in 2000, Sister Catherine said, “an experience like that changes a person,” explaining her desire to return as a missioner to Latin America.  She wishes to continue her dream but also to be able to share with other missioners.  Sister Catherine joined the Maryknoll Sisters as an associate Sister in August 2000 and was assigned to Bolivia to minister to prison inmates, women and youth.

In 2004, she started her official transfer process to Maryknoll and began a new mission experience in Panama from 2006 – 2008.  Sister Catherine also worked in a hospice for HIV and AIDS patients who needed moral and spiritual support.

A few months after making her Final Vows as a Maryknoll Sister, she was asked to share her expertise and join the staff at the Maryknoll Mission Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  She did this from 2008 – 2016.  There she helped coordinate the cultural orientation of students who came to the Center to study Spanish, Quechua or Aymara.  Sister Catherine arranged for speakers and planned activities so students can get a taste of the cultural, social, and political reality of Bolivia and of Latin America.  The part Sister Catherine liked best was accompanying the students and learning from the many interesting people who passed through the Center.

Sister Catherine returned to the USA in 2016, and in 2017, she was assigned to Naples, Florida to do health work, which she is continuing up to the present.