Florida Catholic | Blessed Among Women’

‘Blessed among women’

Archdiocesan women’s council celebrates 50 years of sisterhood and selfless service.

ANA RODRIGUEZ’SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MIAMI BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 05.21.08

Ruth Dunnigan, center, received the Our Lady of Good Counsel Award, the highest honor given each year to a member of the Miami Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women.

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FC
Ruth Dunnigan, center, received the Our Lady of Good Counsel Award, the highest honor given each year to a member of the Miami Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women. Congratulating her after the announcement are Msgr. Andrew Anderson, moderator of the archdiocesan council, and her daughter, Mary Lou Ruderman, who serves as treasurer of the archdiocesan council.

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FC
North Broward district council president Connie Burger, left, congratulates Nancy Perris, center, who was voted outstanding member of the year.

FORT LAUDERDALE | This year, the celebration of sisterhood reached as far as the Bahamas.

Among the nearly 200 women who gathered May 1-4 for the 50th annual convention of the Miami Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women were 35 guests from the Archdiocesan Women’s Auxiliary of the Bahamas.

“We were formed out of Miami,” said Verdell Williams, president of the Bahamian group, citing the experience of a woman from the islands who had lived in south Florida. “When she saw what was happening here, she brought it back to the Bahamas.”

Williams noted that most parishes in the Bahamas have a ladies’ auxiliary, but an archdiocesan group – which, in their case, also means national – had never been active. Through Msgr. Andrew Anderson and Msgr. Kenneth Schwanger – who help out in the Bahamas Tribunal and serve as moderators of the archdiocesan and Broward councils, respectively – the connection was made between Williams and Diane Tugander, president of the Miami archdiocesan council.

The two met several times in the Bahamas and Williams accompanied Tugander to the National Council of Catholic Women’s convention in Ohio earlier this year.

“She gave me lots of information,” said Williams. “We realized we were headed in the right path but there was room for improvement.”

The Bahamas archdiocesan council now has a moderator – Msgr. Alfred Culmer, who attended the Miami convention – and its members are planning their first national convention for 2009, when the Bahamas marks its 10th anniversary as an archdiocese.

Despite the distance and difference in cultures, the women’s groups in both dioceses face similar challenges.

“The biggest difficulty that we have is getting the younger women involved,” said Williams, a schoolteacher. “They have the concept that a women’s auxiliary is just for the older women. Once they come in, we empower them and get them fully involved.”

“If it were not for the sisterhood of the council, I don’t know where I would be,” said Tugander, whose husband died 21 years ago, leaving her with three young daughters. “They helped me find an identity of my own.”

On the last day of the convention, Tugander ended her term as president and handed the gavel to her vice president, Theresa Spirito, who will serve as president for the next two years.

“It’s been just lots of fun,” said Tugander, who joined the women’s council at All Saints Parish in 1985 and has served in various positions at the parish and district level since then.

She also holds a full-time job as a teacher’s assistant in the Broward County school system, making her a working woman who does not fit the “old and retired” image associated with council members. That stereotype might have to change.

“There are some dynamic young women out there who have been taking on the leadership roles,” Tugander said. “We hope that they will pick up the challenge of what was started 50 years ago. We place our dreams in their hands.”

The Miami archdiocesan council has 33 affiliated councils representing 1,500 women throughout the archdiocese. Each year, the women total up thousands of hours of work on behalf of their parishes and the poor, both in their neighborhoods and abroad.

“You have changed lives. You have saved lives,” said Judy Powers, province director of the statewide group, the Florida Council of Catholic Women.

She noted that long before “American Idol” did it, council members were raising funds to build wells that provide clean water to villages in Africa.

Women’s councils in the archdiocese also support orphanages and homeless shelters here and abroad. They provide scholarships to girls who want to continue their education in Catholic high schools. They lobby legislators on issues of life and justice. They gather clothing for children in domestic violence shelters and sound the alarm on issues such as human trafficking and care for the environment.

“We are a dynamite organization,” Powers said, calling the council “one of the best kept secrets in the Catholic Church.”

One of the keynote speakers at the convention was Diane Magnum, who started Magnum’s Force news segments during her 20-year tenure as a newscaster at WPLG Channel 10 in Miami.

The Killian High School and Florida State University graduate told the women that she started the Magnum’s Force segments (now called Care Force) after years of broadcasting “depressing” news.

“I felt compelled to feed the soul,” she said.

She added that, after getting a glimpse at all the projects carried out by the women’s council, “I think you should be called the council of angels.”

During the opening Mass of the convention, Auxiliary Bishop John Noonan summed up the sentiments of those in attendance, be they male or female, when he said, “We are truly blessed among women today.”

Return to the Archdiocese of Miami Front Page

‘Blessed among women’

Other Stories