Sr. Mary Antoinette, DW, Remembered on the 60th Anniversary of her Death
November 19, 2024-Sisters, staff, family, and friends gathered in the chapel at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Convent, Sound Beach, NY, to celebrate the life of Sr. Mary Antoinette, DW (Anna Lucy Donniacuo) and to recognize the 60th year of her martyrdom. Sister's family, nephew Dr. Joseph Cincotta, her nephew Jay's wife Donna Cincotta, and great-niece Jeanette Cincotta were in attendance.
In her welcoming address, Delegation Leader, Sr. Catherine Sheehan, DW, said, "Shortly after returning to Congo, the Isangi community was captured by rebels. There was not much communication after she returned until a telegram came from the US State Department announcing that on November 19, Sr. Mary Antoinette, Belgian Sr. Anne Francoise, and Dutch Montfort Fr. Leo Hammerlaan were martyred and their bodies thrown into the Congo River. The story of their lives did not end that day. Their memories and acts of courage inspire us to this day. We may not be faced with the same danger, but we are still called to be witnesses of our faith that professes forgiveness and brings about peace and justice in the world. Today, we remember and celebrate Sr. Mary Antionette's life and how she lived it in love and faith until the end."
Fr. Tom Poth, SMM, Provincial of the Montfort Missionaries, gave the Homily and said of Sr. Mary Antoinette, DW. "We today, 60 years later, thank God for the treasure of Sr. Mary Antoinette, the Montfort missionaries, and the Daughters of Wisdom from Belgium. We continue to celebrate the sacrifice and the joy of giving one's life to bring about the dignity of another. That's worth celebrating; that's what we continue to move forward for... Love is the final word. Love is what we aim for, and sometimes it means giving of ourselves - totally. So, we give thanks today and are grateful for what we have received through baptism ... as we continue to bring forth the dignity and respect of other human beings through the power of redemptive love."
The following is the memorial given by Dr. Joseph Cincotta, the nephew of Sr. Mary Antoinette, DW. He was 14 years old when Sister was martyred in the Congo in 1964. From her novitiate days to her Death, he and his family corresponded with Sister through dozens of letters. They tell the story of her first voyage across the Atlantic in 1952 on a cargo ship carrying lumber to Africa, followed by a multi-day train trip to Nyasaland (now known as Malawi), where she was in ministry until 1958. She returned home to the US for a few years, went to Belgium to study, and then returned to Africa in 1961 to a Daughters of Wisdom regional house in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Isangi. It is there where the congregation ran a school, orphanage, and a hospital. It was at the Congo River where she would eventually meet her demise.
Dr. Cincotta shared his plans to publish the letters and a book he had transcribed into English, written in 1964 in Dutch by Montfort Father Harrie Tielemans, describing the Congo during that time.
60th Anniversary Memorial
By Joseph Cincotta
Thank you for being here today to celebrate and remember the life of Sister Mary Antoinette, DW, my aunt, and me, known as Aunt Nana. It has been 60 years. Let’s stop a moment and let that sink in – 60 years.
I would be remiss if I did not take time today also to recognize those who died with Sister on November 19th during the events in Isangi—Father Leo Ammerlaan of the Netherlands and Sister Anne- Françoise of Belgium. Brother Clemens of the Netherlands died in a separate incident in Basoko Prison on November 10th. Today is an important day to remember all of them – saints of the Church were made on those days at places deep in Congo, and I will come back to that point in a few moments.
I also want to recognize and give thanks to Father Harrie Tielemans, a Montfort Father, who was in Congo during these events and lived through those horrific days and nights. After his rescue, he wrote a book about the 1964 events and filled in many details about that time for me. It was a difficult read. The book was originally published in 1966 in Dutch and subsequently translated into French. It came to my attention in 2023 after my talk with Sister Cathy Sheehan. I was able to get it translated earlier this year with the assistance of a wonderful professional translator and plan to publish it fouras well as a book of selected letters from Sister.
I know, looking around, that many of you were alive at that time. You may have a memory of this day in 1964, or you may not have known Sister back then. My memory of that late fall and early winter of 1964 remains clear. I would like to cover three important points today with you about Sister, about forgiveness, and about sainthood.
First, let me tell you a little about Aunt Nana. For much of my young life, she was away. I was just shy of my 15th birthday when she was killed. In my adult mind, I am saddened I did not have time with her from adult to adult to have her talk and me listen. So many questions and so many stories. However, I have snippets of memories of her when she was home and would visit. I am told we would go to the convent on occasion in Ozone Park to visit her when she was stationed there teaching at Our Lady of Wisdom Academy, but I do not remember those visits. I remember writing to her in Africa on my Olivetti typewriter – a Christmas gift one year that was put to good use for many years (a time before computers and cellphones). And I remember her letters – so many letters – real letters, not tweets or texts, and certainly no emojis. As my parents were aging at home during the last years of their lives, I would travel from PA to Huntington on Friday night after work to help my sister and a host of other invaluable friends to care for them. During those visits, my parents would sleep a fair amount, and I used that time to go through things in the basement. During one of those organizing ventures, I came across letters from Sister to the family. Those letters spanned the time from her novitiate days to the time of her death in 1964. Yes, there were gaps in the letters, and I wish I had some of the letters we sent to her, but the written record of those letters is rich with stories and emotion. I converted each letter to a digital format by typing each out and saving them in chronological order. I have three binders of original letters, most on that blue airmail paper of long ago.
The letters tell the story of her first voyage across the Atlantic in 1952 on a cargo ship carrying lumber to Africa and arriving in Capetown for its 300th Anniversary. This was followed by a multi-day train journey up the center of South Africa, then east toward what would be her home in Nyasaland (now known as Malawi) until 1958, when she returned home to the US. She returned to her Africa in 1961 to a mission in Congo in a place called Isangi, situated right on the Congo River, and deep, deep in Congo and way, way up the Congo River. It is there where she faced her most difficult challenges as a missionary, and she would eventually be caught up in events stoked by national political ambitions, aspirations, and conflict on a world order that would result in the violence of that period in Congo and end for her in her death.
The letters convey her love for Jesus, her love for her family, and her love for those she served in her missions. They are filled with details of her work – work that brought her purpose, work that was meaningful to her. Her letters reflect understanding and frustration about the challenges of the girls she taught who were caught up in a culture where education for girls was always fragile and uncertain, particularly when other priorities arose in their home villages, and some girls would not return after the holiday break. She had great faith in the girls she taught. She was confident in the value of education and progress for the people of Africa. She also remained interested in events on the home front, particularly through the 1950s, from how the Brooklyn Dodgers were doing to who was going to be elected as the new President. For that position, she was confident in a man of principle with a true north and a knowledge of and appreciation for history. As far as the Dodgers were concerned, she would need to wait for them to exit Brooklyn and move to LA to win a World Series during those years.
Suffice it to say that her letters are a treasure from many different perspectives.
The second area I want to briefly cover today with you is the work of forgiveness. I have had many years – 60, to be exact – to think about this. It is something I have returned to time and again. I have attended several remembrance events for Sister over the years, and this is not a subject that has been considered – at least as far as I know.
Sister is not here today to tell you her thoughts, so I am going to act as her surrogate to bring this important issue to clarity. In medicine, we use this action of surrogacy when patients are not able to tell us what they want or think. So, we turn to a surrogate, and that person is to act according to one of two guiding standards. The first is the Best Interest Standard, and the second is the Substituted Judgment Standard. I will follow both those standards by asking what Sister would do in this situation of forgiveness and what is in Sister’s best interest in deciding on forgiveness.
I have wondered about the lives of those involved in her killing that day. What happened to them? What about the villagers who witnessed the killing and who encouraged the killers during that violent day? Did they reflect on their actions? Did they feel remorse and sorrow? Did they think about forgiveness? How did the events of that time impact the rest of their lives? And what about leaders of countries, including the US, think and feel about these horrific events and the role they played in their unfolding? What impact, if any, did these events have on their future thinking or action?
I have no idea. However, I do know what Sister would tell them. “I forgive you.” So here today in the name of Sister Mary Antoinette, I tell you that you are forgiven. You are still accountable, and I pray you learned things of value and importance, things that later made a positive difference in your lives and the lives of others.
Finally, and this is the last thing I promise. I need to address the matter of sainthood for these four individuals. Sometimes, in fact, often, the Church is a very slow-moving organization. What do you expect? It is run by men.
What I have also learned over my years, particularly coming of age in the 1960s, is that sometimes things need to be shaken up. There are times when leadership and progress need to occur from the bottom up, not from the top down.
So, it is in that spirit that today I am publicly proclaiming (I am sure a number of you have already privately proclaimed this) for the Catholic Church and in the name of the Catholic Church, the canonization of Sister Mary Antoinette, Sister Anne-Françoise, Father Leo Ammerlaan, and Brother Clemens as saints of the Roman Catholic Church and should be referred to as such publicly and privately going forward. It is just the right thing to do.
Thank you. May Sister bestow her blessing on each of you and all of you. I know she is smiling and may even have had a little laugh over all of this.
