“She was committed to people who were in the city jails and especially to the indigenous people who were not afforded dignity and respect,” said Sr. Kitsy about Sr. Providencia, SP. “Others, including judges and law enforcement officers, understood and appreciated that commitment and respected her for it.”
After high school graduation in 1954, Sr. Kitsy joined the Sisters of Providence.
“They were crusaders; they were prophetic in their time and continue to be, for me,” she said. “We take our place at the margins to be a voice for people who are voiceless.”
She professed first vows in 1956 at Mount St. Vincent in Seattle. Her zeal for living and working with the poor and disadvantaged has been at the heart of every ministry she did, including 15 years teaching at the elementary, secondary and college levels, 13 years in provincial administration and leadership and four years as superior at Mount St. Joseph in Spokane.
Sr. Kitsy’s rich life and ministry in her native Montana included being a freshman in the first class of Central High School, the diocesan high school in Great Falls, and opening a new parish school in Great Falls with another Sister of Providence, Sr. Rita Ann. They both lived at St. Thomas orphanage. After her return from graduate school, Sr. Kitsy taught at the College of Great Falls, now the University of Providence.
The practical work in social justice was enhanced when Sr. Kitsy studied government and political theory at Georgetown University in the late 1960s. She interned for a Montana congressman in the U.S. Capitol and worked for three years at Opportunities, Inc., in Great Falls, advocating for low-income persons and families.
In 1995, she moved with four other Sisters of Providence to the El Bajo area of El Salvador to participate in the work of the Basic Christian Communities. During that time, they developed a program of scholarships and life skills, The Beca Program, for the youth of the campsino families in the area. Ten years later, she returned to help reinvigorate the Beca program, which continues strong today.
In 2002, she was elected as Superior General of the Sisters of Providence as the first non-French-speaking woman to hold that position.
Sr. Kitsy has also served as an international observer of the return to democracy in Haiti, helped install stoves in homes in Guatemala with Providence Health International and served as interim superior of the local Providence community in Winooski, Vermont.
Despite the turbulence of the 1960s, the changes brought by Vatican II and the ongoing struggle for civil rights and peace, her course has not waivered. She entered the religious community to work for peace and justice and to help the poor and the powerless.
“The community has always provided me the means to do that,” she said. “Never in any way has it limited my ability and desire to serve in the way that I felt called.”