Sr. Rose Marie Cecchini retired from ministry in the Diocese of Gallup in 2023, after running an office of Peace, Justice, and Creation Ministry. Prior to her time in the Diocese, she served as a missionary to Asia. Before her departure from the Diocese, she sat down with The Voice of the Southwest to reflect on her ministry and life as a religious sister.
Voice of the Southwest: Why don’t you give a little background on yourself?
I am from Stockton, California, about 50 miles from Sacramento.
I am a Maryknoll Sister, and I entered in 1954 after a period of prayer and discernment. I was drawn to Maryknoll because it had been founded in the United States as the first congregation for women serving in other countries. So it proved to be really what I was called to, and I’m just ever so grateful.
I spent five years at our Maryknoll center in New York and was assigned on Pentecost Sunday without any prior warning to Japan. I spent 33 years in Japan and the Philippines and Nepal – 25 in Japan, three in the Philippines, and five most recently in Nepal. And the time came for me to come back. My mother’s health was not good, and I wanted to be close enough to assist my brother and his wife in any way I could.
At that time, we had Maryknoll Sisters working in the Gallup Diocese. I had the opportunity to come and have a look. And that proved to be a whole new opening up. So I spent four years with them on their staff at the [now closed] Lady of Mount Carmel Residential Treatment Facility. I was being oriented in a way that was very much making me aware of the challenges, and yet the blessings of the Native American traditions and spirituality.
[In Japan I had also been involved] with the peace movement and even the Japanese church and Japanese bishops speaking out so strongly about nuclear disarmament and the aftermath of Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
When I learned in 1997 that a uranium mine was being proposed for Church Rock and Crownpoint, I just could not believe it. And I tried to talk about it with people, but the prevailing view of it was, “Well, it will bring jobs”. Jobs at what cost?
[Eventually I made] very wonderful friends and mentors. And they opened up to me the whole history of the uranium mining on Navajo land from the 1940s up until the 1980s, and the thousands of abandoned uranium mines that were impacting the health and well-being of communities here on Navajo land and neighboring communities as well.
At that time, Sister Betty Marie Dunkel was director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese. And she also was very concerned about all these issues. So at that time, I had gone back to Maryknoll for renewal. She said, “When you come back, would you please consider starting an Office of Peace, Justice and Creation?” You know, we want to respond with the works of mercy. But we also want to address the systemic and structural causes of poverty, of racism, of predatory lending, homelessness, addiction, and then the environmental injustices that were all around it.
You mentioned that you were drawn to the Maryknoll Sisters because their missions originally were in other countries. Why did you feel the call to be a missionary?
I grew up with a sense of being connected beyond my own neighborhood, my own boundaries, my own country even. Because my mother and father were both born in the town of Cattolica in Italy on the Adriatic coast.
I grew up with them speaking their dialect at home, having Italian friends come and meet every month. We would be hearing all this Italian, because they could speak their own language. Of course, in daily life, they had to use English. But I grew up with his sense that I had all these relatives somewhere who were in another country.
And my mother was a fantastic storyteller. I grew up [knowing] every one of her brothers and sisters and she knew my father’s family. I had all these people, a part of my consciousness, who I never met, but they were over there somewhere.
And then in California, of course, you have the Hispanic community. We have the largest community of Filipinos. I went to St. Mary’s Dominican High School, and we had Lebanese students. So I was very comfortable with this idea of the diversity of who we are. I was finding this vocation – again, God’s hand and the Spirit is at work.
One of our neighbors next door, the Dixons, had a family in Iowa move to Stockton. And so they wanted to befriend that family. And the family had a daughter my age. So they said, Rose Marie, would you please take her into your care so that she can meet your friends. Katie was her name. So Katie became a dear friend and joined in our groups, all socializing.
Then one day Katie had something to share with me. She opens her bureau door and she puts out this flyer, and here is the inscription, “Maryknoll Sisters Overseas Missioners”. And here’s this big group of sisters. I had no clue what this community was about. Katie said, “just applied to join the Maryknoll Sisters”. And so that flyer through Katie is what alerted me to the community.
Did she ended up joining?
No, she married and had eight children! (laughs) I ended up going to Maryknoll.
Do you think growing up with all these other immigrant families sort of shaped your heart and your ministry?
My mother was a person who was always – and dad too – hospitality, the home was always open. My mother was always ready for a feast. She would make her own pasta.
I remember my mother and dad helping newly arrived immigrants, too, that were having a hard time. Mom and Dad were lucky. They arrived in 1928 during the Depression and had already a family, my mom’s first cousins. I was experiencing all these forms of community where people struggled, having to make great adjustments and transitions, and yet were finding that way to create space, to support one another, to really be there to help in whatever way they could.
And then after the war, 1945, my mother having all these connections with women, started collecting clothing. And she and my dad would make these parcels and send them to Italy, because people had been bombed out. The Allies and the Nazis went back and forth on that coast of Italy. There was great, great destruction. And they had nothing after the war. So this was kind of like a care package that would be going out.
I guess all of that formed this sense that, you know, we’re here for a purpose.
And so your time in Japan, is that where you first started to sort of develop a passion for environmentalism? Because of the after-effects of Hiroshima, Nagasaki?
Yeah, well, I think with Japan, the first thing we did was have to go to language school for two years. We would visit the temples. And they are awesome. We would have retreat days in our habits. We’d go and just spend the day in these beautiful gardens. I was beginning to absorb that nature is integral to Japanese life.
Then in the Philippines, I was there during the Marcos military dictatorship and had to travel in areas that were very dangerous, and some communities were under threat. Paramilitary groups were threatening Christian community leaders because they refused to evacuate or be removed from their lands, and they’d rather die than leave. So there was another aspect there where they were living simple lives on the land with one hectare, one acre or so. And it had been bequeathed to them after World War II. It was a land reformation to give land to the most poor in Mindanao.
But then Marcos had earmarked all these lands for agribusiness corporations, so people were being forcibly evacuated.
In the People Power movement in the Philippines, which was nonviolent predominantly, there were some forces that wanted to revert to violence. The religious were very involved: priests and lay, Catholic and Protestant, people of faith. They resisted any kind of violence, but I could see their identity was in the land. Their home, their families, their communities were all one with the land. And that’s what Father Alengal, a Jesuit priest who was in Kibawe, [told me].
He said, “you know, sister, we don’t know from one day to the next what will happen to us”. But the community prayed, they would meet every Friday night in an outdoor shed and they listened to the radio, the gospel reading for that Sunday, and then they would discuss among themselves.
And he said “After a period of time, the people have come to a deep conviction that God is asking them to be faithful. Faithful to their families, faithful to the community, faithful to the land, and we will not leave this land.” And four months after I was there, Father Alengal was executed at the front of his house.
Were you ever threatened when you were there?
Actually, when I was traveling there, and in Manila, I had an episode where I was.
I had come from Japan, I had no record, so I was free to request to visit the political detainees. They were mostly Catholic and Protestant faith leaders. They were the lucky ones. They were not killed – they were arrested. They were all in this detention camp on the outskirts of Manila.
I could take vegetables and food and other supplies they needed, and I’d have to go in to be checked out and everything. But before going on one occasion, one of our sisters who had been in the Bicutan area had been in contact with an indigenous leader. And he knew a Filipino priest who was in the detention camp, and he wanted to get a message to him. So he had written a little note, like a one inch by one inch note, in a very tiny, tiny script. And it had been rolled up as smaller than this [shows a fingernail]. And I was to carry that into the detention camp.
I inadvisably put it in my coin purse. So you’d go in, the military men with rifles, everything is searched and they went right for my handbag, opened that and found [the letter].
And they opened it up. They said, “You are a subversive! We are going to report you to our general”.
And here I am, shaking in my boots, and [I had been advised] whenever I got caught in any way, to never show fear, never show fear. So I said, [loudly and boldly] “I am a Maryknoll Sister. Do you wish to speak to my superior?!”
And I guess they didn’t want to get tangled with my superior for some reason. And they allowed me to go through, but I knew the other option was they would follow me home, because they wanted to find out where this leader was. So I took several jeepneys back. I went back to our Burgos house, which is a larger community. But it was scary because I could have been arrested right there. I mean, people were arrested for nothing. Nothing.
And then the other [experience I had] was going to Mindanao traveling alone on a jeepney. The people warned me, “do not speak”. Because if they knew I was a foreigner, that would be another to take hostage.
But every time we would stop at the checkpoints, these were military or paramilitary who were doing the bidding of Marcos and the military dictatorship. Fortunately, I did not arouse any sense that I was a foreigner. And I didn’t breathe a word. We actually went through one of the poor villages that had been attacked by the military because they were targeted for eviction. And unfortunately, they got arms, because there was the communist element in all of this. They wanted armed warfare. And when the military came in to force them out, they started firing. And of course [the military] came with their superior weaponry. They massacred the whole village. We rode through that.
And to know that death, you know, was all around there. And it could happen to any of these people I was with, or myself. You realize the fear they live with. And yet, that People Power movement ousted Marcos.
Again, there was the witness of a suffering, persecuted people who through a faith that was so rooted and grounded, were willing to sacrifice and even die.
And then you went to Nepal?
We had Maryknoll sisters in Kathmandu and they were all involved with the Jesuit high school. So I got the visa to come in, because it was a rather new mission. It was a school for boys.
I was there for two years teaching. And the last year I was there, the seniors in my class needed a project. I said, you know, you have such a beautiful country, you can see the Himalayas! And so I set up a project with them for them to identify issues around the water, the soil, the air, the mountains. At the end they all had a demonstration together of all their projects, and it was so satisfying. They were so excited.
At that point, the School Sisters of Notre Dame [came to Nepal]. They had decided to offer a mission in Asia somewhere. The word got out to this community in Bandipur, which is a six-hour bus ride, and then a three-hour mountain climb to get to. A delegation came to Kathmandu and met with the sisters. And they said, “we would like to invite you to our village. We are very poor, but we want to have education for our children. We are craftsmen. We can build and we can do stoneware. We will build the school, but come and educate our children”.
And the School Sisters, very astute and very well informed as they were, were very moved by this. They said, “we will come to your village on one condition, that you will send your girl children with your boy children.”
That was a big thing, because at the time, the girl children are considered a temporary member of the family. They are not afforded the nutrition that the boy is given. They would not be considered for education. As soon as they’re able, they start doing all the household chores and work.
So that was a stipulation that they actually kept.
And the old buildings [of Bandipur], they’re quite impressive, but many of them were empty. Some of the families remained and some of the farmers would just be eking out a bare existence. Our teachers, our staff were not only teachers, but they also had to grow whatever food was needed. So they were very well versed in the agricultural practices.
As sisters together, we thought, how to transform this and draw on the wisdom and experience of the people? So we consulted the teachers who were farmers and they said, “we really need to get back to the Earth”.
And so what happened? We had a water buffalo, and she would have a new calf every year and we loved that buffalo calf, it became our little pet. The manure was used with straw and that started our composting. And we got a wonderful opportunity with Seeds to the World, started by a friend who owned a seed business in Stockton, California. And they were able to get quality seed and ship it free. We got all these seeds distributed in Bandipur and we started an agricultural program with the students.
They started recultivating the soil, and this started with the seventh and eighth graders. Every harvest all these vegetables just blossomed. Our children came from 12 surrounding villages, and they were all agricultural villages. So what was happening was, we were affirming what they valued, which was the land and the cultivation – we call it food sovereignty now.
And then was it your choice to come to the Diocese of Gallup?
Well, as I arrived in the United States, I realized that I had no knowledge of the First Peoples of my own country. And in pursuing that, then coming here and through the Maryknoll Sisters being here, I was able to find the next step.
And what year did you first come to the diocese?
1996.
Were you in Gallup the whole time or other places?
Yes, the whole time.
What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned here in the diocese?
Well, coming with the desire to be open and receptive to how the Holy Spirit is speaking through others. Having the experience of the expansive landscapes of the Southwest was very [great]. And that, to me, spoke to the ever-increasing, ever-open horizons of God’s call.
I love to learn about the place I’m in – just learning a little bit about how Earth formed here. And I was informed that millions of years ago, this was covered by an alluvial ocean. And as those waters receded, sand was plentiful and there were also violent nature manifestations, so that winds formed sand dunes. These huge mesas are petrified sand dunes.
What are some things you’re proud to have accomplished during your time here?
Well, I’m not really proud because everything has been with others.
I think of the experience of the “people power”, [like] People Power from the Philippines, that when we come together with this heart, a heart of compassion, a heart of love, a heart of respect, in times of great crisis, pain, suffering – and this could be on an individual level, family level, it could be a community that’s going through a hard time. But the fact that we have this gift of being able to allow God’s love to flow through us for greater wholeness, for healing. And that’s what Jesus was about. You know, His whole life was reaching out to those considered marginal, unimportant – outcasts.
What do you think are some issues that are still facing the Gallup area or the diocese?
Why is it that we do not have the resources for most vulnerable who, if given help at a critical time in their life, can move forward? We have to ask, where’s the money? You know, there is great money being made in this community. How do we allocate our resources for the great good of the whole community? We need to learn to listen to one another, because of the intergenerational trauma, and that can be from every ethnic group.
But somehow out of that woundedness, the response is defensive or attacking. So how do we help each other heal? We present ourselves as being a very multicultural community. But in reality, the social ills speak a different story.
So conversion, transformation, and we deal with a lot of the accessibility of alcohol, how that’s an income for some businesses. How do we intervene? All of us are responsible. It’s not just the emergency assistance workers. How do we live as a human community in God’s eyes? And how does that reflect God’s love for us as we share it with one another?
What’s next for you? You’re going back to the Mother House?
No, I am going to something quite interesting. I’m going to Monrovia, California, where a Maryknoll Sister started a [tuberculosis] sanitorium in the 1930s. It was for Japanese agricultural workers who were a major workforce in the valley there. And they were not admitted to hospital when they became ill with tuberculosis. And there were no vaccines or remedies, no treatments yet had been discovered. So the only cure would be rest, good nutrition, and sunlight.
We have seven acres there. And then gradually when all these scientific innovations came out, there was no longer any need for having these little casitas and all. And so we were going to sell it in the 1960s. And I remember it because I came back from Japan on a visit and the talk was, you know, we’re going to sell Monrovia. Three times the sisters were in negotiation with the buyer to sell the entire property. And three times it failed.
And at that point in the 1960s, our sisters were coming back from Africa, from Asia, from Latin America, you know, still in good health, but you know, needing to come back and able to do volunteer work. So it became our retirement center.
And so that’s where you’re going to be. Are you going to do a specific job, like gardening or anything?
Oh, I’ll get into whatever I can get into. I would love to get my hands into Mother Earth. I would love that.
Is there anything else that you want to add about your life and your time here?
My heart is overflowing with gratitude because all has been a gift. All has been a gift.