SAN DIEGO — “No thanks.”
That was Sister Kathy Warren’s response when first invited to apply for the position of director of San Diego’s diocesan Office for Women Religious.
She wasn’t interested in relocating from her native Rochester, Minnesota, and was happily leading Franciscan pilgrimages to Assisi and Rome and giving talks on Franciscan spirituality.
But when the question was posed a third time and, especially once she realized that the part-time position wouldn’t require her to stop promoting the Franciscan message of nonviolence and peace, she recognized God’s hand at work.
“I know this of God. I know the invitation is coming for a reason, so strong, three times,” Sister Warren, who is a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Rochester, recalled thinking.
Her ultimate “yes” led to nine years as head of the Office for Women Religious, where she served as the official liaison between the bishop and the consecrated women who live and minister in the diocese. Currently, there are about 145 of them, representing 28 congregations.
Sister Warren, who turned 77 in June, stepped down as the office’s director on May 28. The previous month, she had been elected to a four-year term as the leader of the Franciscan Sisters of Rochester.
“As I return to Minnesota to serve as the congregational minister/president of the Franciscan Sisters, I do so with deep gratitude for the ministry that I’ve been privileged to provide in the Diocese of San Diego,” she said. “Serving as the director of the Office for Women Religious has been a profound honor – a role that allowed me to accompany, support and collaborate with remarkable communities of women religious whose dedication to who they are and what they are about continues to inspire me.”
Among her main responsibilities as director of the Office for Women Religious, Sister Warren organized the Annual Sisters Appreciation and Jubilee Celebration, an event that for decades has served as an expression of the bishop’s appreciation for the contributions of consecrated women in his diocese.
About 85 to 100 sisters typically attend that celebration, which begins with a Mass followed by a luncheon. At the event, sisters who are marking milestone anniversaries, or jubilees, receive special recognition. This year’s celebration was held Feb. 28 at the diocesan Pastoral Center.
In addition to this event, the Office for Women Religious also holds at least two enrichment events each year, one in the fall and another in the spring, which provide an opportunity for communal prayer and reflection.
Sister Warren said that, at those events, the sisters were asked not to sit with members of their own congregations but to “mix up” by sitting with other sisters.
“It was scary at first, because they didn’t know each other,” she said, “but they loved getting to know each other.”
Sister Warren typed up a chronology of milestones over the past nine years, which she shared with the women religious of the diocese. It was titled “What We’ve Done Together.” That list of milestones included the following:
A Sisters Council was formed and began meeting in August of 2018.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, sisters accepted an invitation from then Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan to be trained to lead faith-sharing sessions with small groups of lay people via Zoom.
In 2023, the Sisters’ Faith-In-Action Network (FAN), a consortium of 11 religious congregations that was formed in response to a $2.7-million grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, began its collaborative work. The grant, which was jointly awarded to the 11 congregations and to Catholic Charities-Diocese of San Diego, funded 15 individual projects sponsored by the sisters and three Catholic Charities projects.
In 2024, the first annual gathering of the diocese’s priests, men and women religious, and parish life coordinators was held. The idea for this event came from the Sisters Council. This year’s installment took place April 14 at All Hallows Parish.
At a farewell reception held May 27, Bishop Michael Pham recalled meeting Sister Warren for the first time nine years ago after the diocesan Pentecost Mass for All Peoples and, following his appointment as an auxiliary bishop in 2023, working closely with her to organize what became the annual gathering of priests, religious and parish life coordinators.
Noting that the latter event has been “getting better and better,” he jokingly told her, “You better stay.”
“Come back here and visit us when you get a chance,” the bishop told her. “I’m sure you’re pretty busy, but we’re here, you are always welcome.”
Local women religious, lay Catholics and Pastoral Center staff spoke warmly of Sister Warren and her ministry in interviews with The Southern Cross.
“I felt she really brought new life,” said Sister Rosemary Nicholson, a member of the Religious of Jesus and Mary. “She certainly got to know the sisters of our different congregations here and helped us to get to know each other better also.”
Sister Rebeca Zuro, a member of the Sister Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, described Sister Warren as “one of a kind” and “a person that creates unity.” She said that Sister Warren had been able “to gather all the sisters, and help us work together, and know each other, and collaborate.”
Margie Carroll, former regional director of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, said she “became fast friends” with Sister Warren, shortly after the latter’s arrival in San Diego.
Three years ago, she shared, the duo walked 95 miles together along the ancient pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, in France and Spain.
More recently, they have participated together in the FAITH (Faithful Accompaniment in Trust & Hope) ministry, through which clergy and faithful from various faith traditions accompany migrants to their immigration hearings at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. The ministry was launched last summer.
“I’m going to be very sorry to lose her here (in San Diego), but certainly our friendship will continue across the miles,” said Carroll, who described her friend as “a woman of deep faith, passion and vision – and a great sense of humor.”
Christina Bagaglio Slentz, who oversees Creation Care Ministry in the diocesan Office for Life, Peace and Justice, connected with Sister Warren shortly after joining the diocesan staff in 2022.
She later invited Sister Warren to join the Pastoral Center’s “Laudato Si” Subcommittee, which evaluated actions that could be taken within the diocese to live out the message of “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on care for creation.
“Sister Kathy is very warm and friendly to everyone, and she’s a very dynamic person. … I think she is great at fostering relationship, and she has a real gift for that,” Slentz said.
“She brings … a really positive and joyful energy to the Pastoral Center, and I think it’s going to be a real loss when she moves on,” she said, “but I think she will also be an incredible gift to her (religious) community.”
Sister Warren entered consecrated life in January of 1968, as part of the first group to enter the Franciscan Sisters of Rochester since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. She professed her first vows in 1970 and final vows in 1975.
As director of the Office for Women Religious, Sister Warren said that she typically received about 12 to 15 calls a year from women who are discerning religious life.
“The call to live as a consecrated, vowed woman or man is a real call yet today,” she said, “even though there are fewer people at this point entering into religious life, primarily because there are so many ways both men and women can serve in Church ministries without being in religious life.”
“It’s a beautiful life; it’s a life of joy,” she said. “It, of course, has its own challenges, as every mode of life, vocation does. But the validity of it is no less than it was ever before.”
