Current Ministry Location: Maryknoll Sisters Center-Maryknoll, NY
Sister Rosemary was born September 9th, 1931 in Butte, Montana to Margaret (Sullivan) Healy and Daniel Healy. Her family consisting of parents, Sister Rosemary and one brother, moved to San Francisco, CA when Sister Rosemary was 12. She completed Immaculate Conception grammar school, graduated from Immaculate Conception Academy in 1949 and worked as a secretary before entering Maryknoll.
Sister Rosemary entered the Congregation at their novitiate in Valley Park, MO February 1st, 1951. She pronounced First Vows September 8th, 1953 at Valley Park and Final Vows September 7th, 1959 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Rogers College at the Center in NY in 1962.
From 1953 – 1966, Sister Rosemary served in several congregational houses and taught 8th grade in an African American Puerto Rican parish in New York City’s South Bronx.
Sister Rosemary received her first overseas assignment in 1966, to Manizales, Colombia to a team of Maryknoll priests and Sisters administering the Latin American Catechetical Institute. In 1968, she studied Pastoral Theology at the University Of Salamanca, Spain and In 1970, she was elected to the Maryknoll Sisters Central Governing Board in New York for a four year term.
In 1979 in Mexico City she accompanied the people in a poor sector of the city in initiating Basic Christian Communities. Sister Rosemary moved in 1981 to Guatemala to serve as the Mexico-Guatemala-El Salvador Regional Coordinator, living in Huehuetenango. These were challenging times for the Guatemalan people – the civil war was at its height. In accompanying them, the Sisters were inspired by the spirit and faith of the people during great suffering.
Sister Rosemary served in New York, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. She also spent two months providing emergency assistance in San Salvador during the Nicaraguan crisis and was later featured in the book Hearts on Fire: the Story of the Maryknoll Sisters.
In Mexico Sister Rosemary lived in the parishes of Catarina, San Marcos; El Milagro and Feria de San Jose La Comunidad and there she later wrote, “We experienced the talents and commitment of our lay co-workers in the formation of Catechists, Delegates of the Word and Women’s Groups.”
After her many years in mission and compassionate friendship, Sister Rosemary returned in 2004 to the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY New York, continuing in mission in the Secretariat Office and then through research and writing in our Creative Productions Office until 2011 when she retired.