Missioner-educator served in the Marshall Islands, Hawaii
Maryknoll Sister Mary Camilla Kennedy, missioner-educator to Hawaii and the Marshall Islands, died on Dec. 14 at the Maryknoll Sisters Home Care, Maryknoll, N.Y. She was 88 years old and celebrated 70 years as a Maryknoll Sister this year.
Born in Syracuse, N.Y., on June 20, 1926, Sister Camilla was one of seven children, four boys and three girls, of Matthew P. Kennedy and Irene Deschamps Kennedy.
After graduating from high school, Sister Camilla entered the Maryknoll congregation at its motherhouse in Maryknoll, N.Y., on Sept. 6, 1944, from St. Patrick Parish, Syracuse. She made her final vows on March 7, 1950, at the motherhouse. A 1980 graduate of St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, where she earned her doctorate in philosophy, Sister Camilla also holds a master’s degree in theology from Marquette University, Milwaukee, and a bachelor’s degree in education from Mary Rogers College, Maryknoll, N.Y.
Sister Camilla was sent to the Marshall Islands in 1950, where she taught grades three through eight in Likiep until 1955. She was then assigned to Hawaii where she taught third grade at Maryknoll Elementary School until 1958. She then returned to the Marshall Islands, teaching seventh and eighth grade in Majuro until 1964.
Sister Camilla was named assistant novice mistress of the congregation’s novitiate in Valley Park, Missouri, in 1964 and then director of the orientation program in St. Louis until 1976. Returning to Maryknoll Center in 1977, Sister Camilla was appointed the center coordinator and then elected a member of the center council until 1982. She also served as the Maryknoll Center’s due process moderator from 1985 to 1993.
Following completion of her doctorate dissertation in 1982, which she published as the book “To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth,” Sister Camilla served simultaneously as her congregation’s on-going education director and renewal coordinator. She was named coordinator of mission research in 1994, a position she held until 1999. She then worked as the congregation’s canon law consultant from 1999 to 2004, officially retiring in 2006.
Sister Camilla is survived by two brothers, Father Laurence Kennedy and Father James B. Kennedy, and a sister, Mrs. Ralph (Helen) Lorenzini, all of Syracuse, N.Y.
Sister Camilla was buried Dec. 18 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center Cemetery at N.Y.
