Sr. Lowry
Sr. Maureen Lowry, RSM, died Nov. 7 in Merion Station, Pa., at age 83. She was a health ministry leader in the 1980s and 1990s.
She joined the Catholic health ministry as assistant president of Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Philadelphia. (That organization was comprised of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital and Mercy Philadelphia Hospital.) Sr. Lowry held that post from 1985 to 1986, when she was appointed as the hospital's president. That role evolved as the medical center became part of Catholic Health East. From 1986 to 1993 she was president of health care services for Mercy Health Corporation, a precursor to Mercy Health System, part of Trinity Health. (CHE and Trinity merged in 2013.)
From 1993 to 1995, she was senior associate of sponsorship for CHA in St. Louis. She served on the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, from 1995 to 1999.
She next was mission effectiveness coordinator for the Brooklyn Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy and the coordinator of sponsorship services for the Merion Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy.
Before her 2017 retirement, she spent a decade as a pastoral care associate at St. Ignatius Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia. That ministry "brought her the greatest joy as she accompanied seniors on their final journey to God," according to a remembrance posted on the website of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
She began her career in elementary and secondary education, teaching at Catholic schools in Pennsylvania from the late 1950s through the late 1960s before becoming the principal of a school from 1968 to 1973. She then was a community supervisor of elementary education prior to earning a master's degree in health care administration from New York University in 1985 and transitioning to health care ministry leadership.
She is interred at Sisters of Mercy Cemetery in Merion.