Sister JoAnn Persch, longtime immigrant activist, dies at 91
Sister JoAnn Persch spent a lifetime advocating for immigrants and human dignity.
After decades of ministry, several years of them spent serving refugees from war and torture in Central America, she and the late Sister Pat Murphy in 2007 began organizing weekly prayer vigils outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in west suburban Broadview.
She was among the delegation of clergy, religious and lay people who were denied entry to the ICE facility Nov. 1 when they attempted to bring Communion to the people detained inside.
Sister JoAnn died Nov. 14 at age 91. She was a Sister of Mercy for 73 years.
“How will it be when we will miss JoAnn’s clear voice — quiet, insistent, regular, and respectful — about the new and daily injustices being perpetrated on already-suffering people?” Sister Susan Sanders, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, said in a statement. “How will it be when we will miss her incisive questions, like those she posed to prison guards about why it would be unsafe to offer the Eucharist to imprisoned immigrants?
“Undoubtedly, as JoAnn knows even better now, it will be as God wants it to be. And undoubtedly, JoAnn’s works of kindness, compassion, and justice — offered to a world of institutionalized violence — will be, even more, our work. God’s work.”
Sister JoAnn was born June 27, 1934, to Bernard and Evelyn (Nolan) Persch in Milwaukee.
She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1952 in Des Plaines and later earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics from then-St. Xavier College, and a master’s degree in religious education from Loyola University Chicago.
She taught at several Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Between 1959 and 1962, she taught in Fox Point, Wisconsin, where she met Sister Pat, who died in July at age 96.
The two formed a profound friendship during which they ministered at various shelters and visited countless detention centers across the Chicago region and Wisconsin. The two founded several community and housing organizations, including Su Casa Catholic Worker House in Back of the Yards, the Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants and Catherine’s Caring Cause.
In 2008, Sisters JoAnn and Pat led an effort in passing a state law that allows faith leaders to provide spiritual care for migrants in state detention facilities.
In a conversation with the Sun-Times after the delegation was denied entry to the ICE facility Nov. 1, Sister JoAnn said, “it breaks my heart” to see the changes in how ICE operated the facility and handled its relationship with religious leaders.
Sisters JoAnn and Pat regularly visited people detained in Broadview to pray for them and their families. Prior to the federal government’s aggressive approach to enforce immigration laws in Chicago this summer, Sisters JoAnn and Pat were allowed inside the facility and onto buses before detainees were transferred elsewhere.
“And now, they won’t even acknowledge us,” Sister JoAnn said Nov. 1.
“And what I’d like to start working on is getting it closed down,” she said of the processing center, which became a de facto detention center. “It’s inhumane and it’s just brought back so many memories of when things were open. We had to fight our way in there, they didn’t let us the first time we asked, but we built trust, [a] relationship, and now it just breaks my heart.”
Sister JoAnn is survived by several Persch and Nolan cousins.
A visitation service is scheduled from 2 to 7 p.m. Sunday at Sisters of Mercy Xavier Hall, 10044 S. Central Park Ave. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Barnabas Catholic Church, 10134 S. Longwood Drive.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Catherine's Caring Cause or to the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, both at 10024 S. Central Park Ave., Chicago, IL 60655.