Sister Helen Carpenter, MM

Born: July 31, 1934
Entered: September 2, 1953
Died: August 18, 2024

Our dear Sister Helen Carpenter slipped quietly into the arms of God in the evening of August 18, 2024 at 7pm at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, N.Y. It was a surprise for everyone as we hustled to her room for a last farewell.

Helen was born on July 31, 1934 in Worcester, Mass. to Helen Agnes O’Rourke and Edward Joseph Carpenter, and baptized Helen Therese in the parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Worcester. Her six brothers and two sisters have all predeceased her. She attended Ascension High School in Worcester, and in 1953, during her first year at State Teachers College at Worcester she began to seriously consider religious life. In September of that same year, she entered Maryknoll at the Motherhouse in New York and at her reception into the community received the name Sr. Rose Edward. She professed First Vows on March 7, 1956 and her final Vows on March 7, 1962 at Maryknoll New York.

Helen attended Maryknoll Teachers College from 1958 to 1961 receiving her B.E. degree. Her first assignment was to the Transfiguration parish school in New York City where she taught the fifth grade. In 1964, she received her first overseas assignment to Chile where the Cardinal of Santiago had invited the congregation to dedicate itself to the education of the poor.

After long months of language school, Helen was sent to the Maryknoll parish school in Buzeta, an outlying slum area of the capital city of Santiago. It was an economically poor urban sector of grimy streets, wooden shacks, drunkenness, illiteracy, delinquency with vagrants and beggars roaming the area, while just a bus ride away, there were beautiful homes, good schools, tree-lined streets and magnificent Churches. Helen quickly became involved in the direction of religious formation, the preparation of students for sacraments, catechetical work and home visiting in a sector suffering the effects of long-term social injustice. But unknown to any of us at the time, change was already on the way.

The Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) met in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968 and its guidelines upended and illuminated the pastoral work of the Chilean Church with its key pastoral concept of “Option for the Poor.” Radical attitudes with regard to poverty began to emerge along with a growing resentment among the upper classes who felt betrayed by the Chilean hierarchy. Effects on the political situation in Chile became acute early in the ‘70’s and were felt particularly in those poorer areas of large cities, reaching its peak in the military coup of 1973. Sisters like Helen working particularly in the poorer urban areas found themselves accompanying their neighbors in the sufferings and danger that went on for 17 long years under a cruel dictatorship. Pastoral priorities changed entirely and were directed instead to feeding children in soup kitchens, establishing local clinics, running health programs, fasting together with others in protests, checking house to house on the effects of tear gas and shootings from the night before, facilitating leadership programs, mental health groups for adults and support groups for women. This soon became Helen’s day-to-day life and her pastoral ministry.

In 1978, Helen returned to the States for furlough and to give service at the Maryknoll Center in the Development Dept. She returned to Chile in 1981 and together with Sr. Gerry Doiron opened a small wood-frame house in the parish of San Gabriel. The area was another economically deprived sector of the capitol, at the end of the bus line and the Irish Columban Fathers welcomed the Sisters’ arrival and collaboration. Here they quickly discovered once again the terrible effects of the dictatorship, the aftermath of torture and the disappearance of loved ones that particularly affected women in that area. By 1982, they had opened a small wooden structure which they named Casa Malen for the development of personal formation, mental health, pastoral support, self-help and leadership groups for women. Helen stated her objectives clearly:” I want to help the women come to know themselves, their talents, their rights. I want to raise their self- esteem and give them the tools they need for life.” Her dedication to the cause of Justice and the protection of human rights led her to become a member of a peaceful protest group against torture called Movimiento Sebastian Acevedo. The group was founded by a Chilean Jesuit to keep alive the consciousness of Human Rights crimes both within Chile and around the world. They met again and again in response to these crimes, kneeling peacefully together in public areas, and outside places of detention and torture. Helen was a faithful member of that protest group during the 17 long years of the dictatorship until the return of democracy to Chile in 1990.

It was in 2011, after 46 years of dedicated mission life, at the age of 76, that Helen made the difficult decision to return to the Maryknoll Center and accepted her assignment to the Chi Rho community there. In her last signed statement of March 6, 2017, and in accord with her entire life, she bequeathed and donated her body for medical study and research. And thus, Helen began her long journey home to the welcoming embrace of God.