Sister Mary Lou Stubbs, DC, was young when she learned about social justice issues firsthand.
Born in 1949 in Winnipeg, Canada, she was the oldest of seven children.
“My father was a labor leader,” she said. “We got blacklisted when he fought for worker rights. And he had to leave the country because he couldn’t get a job anywhere.”
In the 1960s, the Stubbs family moved to Peoria, Ill.
At 19 years old, she joined the Daughters of Charity and has continued to put Church teachings into practice through first-person experiences.
Starting in January, Sister Mary Lou took over as the director of Catholic Charities of Arkansas, based in Little Rock.
Sister Mary Lou admits she had no intention of ever joining a religious order when she graduated from high school. Through the example of the Daughters who worked at a research hospital in Carville, La., for Hansen’s Disease patients, she was intrigued with the order’s commitment to the poor.
“I was among the least likely to be a sister, but God intervened and gave me the courage to take a leap of faith. I have known I have been in the right place for 40 years,” she said. “It’s like a marriage. Every day is not perfect.”
In 1973 she became a nurse and started working at Hotel Dieu (House of God) Hospital in New Orleans. Until 1989 she worked for Daughters of Charity Health System as a nurse in St. Louis, Austin and St. Louis.
She became more interested in community health as she began to see the same patients experience problems.
“I really became a convert to prevention and wellness and community health. I became very passionate about that. … Not to just trust hospitals and the medical delivery system. They only work with broken health.
“That lead me into to the Catholic Charities system — complete physical, mental and social well being, not just the absence of illness.”
In 1992 she had her first introduction to working directly with Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. She served as Catholic Charities vice president for mission effectiveness. In 2001 she joined the Diocese of Austin as the director of social concerns and executive director of Catholic Charities of Central Texas.
From 2004 to 2006 she was the executive director of Seton Center in Kansas City, Mo. The agency operated an alternative high school as well as urban health care and social ministries.
As her assignment in Kansas City was finishing last fall, she learned that Sheila Gomez, the Catholic Charities director for the Diocese of Little Rock, was moving to Florida.
“My community asked me to interview, I did and here I am,” she said.
Since her arrival in Arkansas, Sister Mary Lou has visited Catholic Charities offices and learned about what services they offer.
“The services we have are good, but the needs are much greater,” she said. “There is a lot of poverty in Arkansas. By and large, not counting the Little Rock area, there are not that many resources. There is a fabulous potential for the Church to reach out in service in Arkansas and that is what Catholic Charities is. It is the Church putting a different visibility on Catholic social teaching.”
Sister Mary Lou foresees Catholic Charities expanding over the next few years to address major social concerns around the state.
“We have to know what the people’s needs are. What are their wants and what are the resources?” she said.
