Social justice champion dies

September 23, 2024

Humility Sister Elaine Hagedorn lived by a few simple words from the prophet Micah: “Act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God.”

After a lifetime of advocating for justice, caring for others, and being faithful to God, she died Aug. 20 at age 88.

“Elaine was a Sister of Humility in every possible sense,” said Father David Polich at her Mass of Christian Burial at her home parish of Holy Trinity in Des Moines. “It was never about her. Elaine is the homily today. She is the one breaking open the faith, pointing us to the Word that we have and the meal that we share, our union with Christ, our union with one another.”

“Today is a day of remembering her. Today is a day of being thankful for her, certainly. This day is about lifting her up to our eternal, loving God. But we lose the point of all that if we haven’t learned from her or continue to learn from her,” he said.

Sister Elaine was born in 1935 in Denison, raised in Des Moines, attended St. John Grade School and St. Joseph Academy in Des Moines. She entered the Congregation of the Humility of Mary in 1957, one year after her younger sister, Humility Sister Jeanie Hagedorn, entered the community. Sister Elaine professed religious vows in 1960 as Sister Marie Paul.

She held a bachelor’s degree in education from Marycrest College, taught for eight years in Catholic schools in Iowa (including at St. Patrick in Dunlap), served four years as a principal in Marshalltown, and then as area coordinator for the Des Moines Diocese Social Action division for a year. She worked for Meals on Wheels in Des Moines for two years before beginning a 30-year stretch of ministry at Visitation Parish, now called Our Lady of the Americas.

Sister Elaine served as the director of Religious Education and pastoral minister for 22 years, then as pastoral minister full time while Sister Jeanie directed the religious education program. In her role, Sister Elaine focused on service to the elderly, the sick and the dying. She also served as coordinator of adult faith formation and peace and justice. Much of her work at Visitation involved ministry to the growing number of Hispanic members of the parish many of whom remain in close contact today.

“Sister Elaine realized that people sometimes suffer injustices because they are either unaware (of their rights or the resources available to them,” her community’s communication director Lisa Bellomy observed in 2005.

Sisters Elaine and Jeanie lived together for more than 70 years. In a 2007 story in The Catholic Mirror about their golden jubilees, the sisters said their togetherness worked because they shared the same values, priorities, and commitments instilled in them by their parents, Lester and Grace: “Peace and justice, care for the earth, family and faith.” The story of their vocations as “Sister Sisters” appeared this year in the Congregation of the Humility of Mary’s Fall-Winter publication of The Flame.

Sister Elaine remained active in peace and justice efforts including the Des Moines Faith Committee for Peace and as a board member of the Catholic Peace Ministry.

“I think rumors of the retirement of these two (Sisters Elaine and Jeanie) have been drastically exaggerated,” said Father Polich. “If there was retirement, nobody noticed it over time.”

There is a passage in St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians that talks about what it means to live out one’s faith in Jesus.

Father Polich said Sister Elaine modeled this for us: “Elaine was a teacher. She taught even more so by her example, by her life, and by showing, by doing, by caring, by healing, by loving.”