Margaret Traxler

Margaret Traxler
Margaret Traxler
Born	March 11, 1924 St. Paul, Minnesota
Died	February 12, 2002 Mankato, Minnesota
Nationality	American
Alma mater	St. Catherine's College, Notre Dame University
Occupation	Nun, Women's Rights Activist
Religion	Roman Catholic (School Sisters of Notre Dame)

Margaret Ellen Traxler (March 11, 1924- February 12, 2002) was a prominent women’s rights activist and nun with the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Biography

Margaret Ellen Traxler was born in 1924 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Raised in nearby Henderson, Minnesota, Traxler joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1941. She completed a bachelor's degree in English from St. Catherine's College and later received a master's degree from Notre Dame University. For 17 years Sr. Traxler taught in high schools and colleges, before devoting herself to advocacy on behalf of interracial justice and the rights of women in society and the Catholic Church. In 1965 she joined the staff of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, based in Chicago, serving successively as assistant director and director of its Department of Educational Services (1965-1971) and as executive director (1971-1973). During this period she marched in the front row in Selma, Alabama with 12 other sisters and with Martin Luther King Jr, organized "traveling workshops" of sister-scholars to assist schools preparing for integration, and established a program to place religious women in black colleges to allow the regular faculty to pursue advanced degrees. Other notable activities included attending the Paris peace talks on Vietnam, organizing the NCCIJ’s Citizen's Task Force of Inquiry Regarding Civil Liberties in Belfast Northern Ireland, and cofounding the National Coalition of American Nuns and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, for which she received an award from Golda Meir.

Women’s Rights

In 1984 Traxler was one of 26 nuns who signed their names to an advertisement in The New York Times entitled "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion".^[1] The ad stated that there was more than one Catholic position on abortion, and called for religious pluralism and discussion within the Church. The ad showed the results of a poll of American Catholics: 11% were against abortion in any form. The ad said that this demonstrated a great majority of Catholics were sympathetic to at least some instances of abortion. Traxler upheld the church's teaching opposing abortion, but believed each woman had a right to make the choice for herself. Although 96 other theologians, nuns, priests and laymen also signed the ad, it was the sisters who drew the Vatican's wrath and who had to retract their statement or risk expulsion from their orders. The four-year ordeal that ensued saw two nuns leave religious life, and heralded the start of Traxler's heart troubles. Traxler defended the poll findings by appearing on television with a tube of toothpaste, saying that the toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube; an analogy to the Church's inability to hide the fact that the majority of American Catholics disagreed with its doctrinal position.^[1] "The tension that comes with Rome on your back is enormous," said Sr. Betty Barrett, who added that Traxler suffered greatly when Rome forbade her friend of 30 years, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, to continue her pastoral ministry with gays and lesbians. Gramick called Traxler "a giant of a woman, a prophetess to us all, unafraid to speak truth to power."^[2]

Traxler was also the founder of the Institute for Women Today, a Christian- Jewish-Protestant coalition to reach out to troubled women. Under the aegis of the IWT,she organized skilled workers and lawyers to travel to women’s prisons in Illinois to provide training and advice. And she visited these prisons regularly, bringing the women sewing machines to make clothes for their children. She opened Sister House on Chicago’s west side to aid women coming out of prison. She established Maria Shelter for abused women and children and Casa Notre Dame for older homeless women. And she funded these projects by speaking regularly, and without embarrassment, at churches and synagogues. Sr. Traxler died in 2002, two years after suffering a debilitating stroke that ended her public work. She was buried in Mankato, Minnesota, in the cemetery at the motherhouse of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Archival Collections

Sister Margaret Traxler Papers [1]

The collection includes her Private Correspondence (1953-1995), Private Correspondence by Correspondent (1958-1994), Writings by Sr. Margaret Ellen Traxler (1950-1996), Honors (1970-1995), Speaking Engagements, 1963-1996), Subject Files (1965-1994), Family Papers (1916-1918, 1924, 1941-1994), and Writings about Sr. Margaret Ellen Traxler (1941-2002).

See also

• Marquette University
• Marquette University Special Collections and University Archives
• School Sisters of Notre Dame

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Cantlon, Marie (2006). Encyclopedia of women and religion in North America. 3. Indiana University Press. pp. 1104–1106. ISBN 0253346886. 
2. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_17_38/ai_84092237/pg_3?tag=artBody;col1

Persondata
Name	Traxler, Margaret
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 11, 1924
Place of birth	St. Paul, Minnesota
Date of death	February 12, 2002
Place of death	Mankato, Minnesota