BELMONT — Mercy Sister Ellen McSorley, 88, died May 21, 2018, at the Sisters of Mercy’s Marian Center in Belmont following an extended illness. She had been a Sister of Mercy for 70 years.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated May 24, 2018, Sacred Heart Convent Chapel on the campus of the Sisters of Mercy in Belmont. Interment followed at Belmont Abbey Cemetery in Belmont.
Sister Ellen McSorley was born July 19, 1929, in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of John Francis McSorley and Mary Nelligan.
In 1948 she entered the Sisters of Mercy in Baltimore. Following her profession of vows, she chose as her personal motto “To Jesus Crucified Through Mary Sorrowful.”
Sister Ellen received a bachelor’s degree in education from Mount St. Mary’s College in Baltimore, Maryland, and a master’s degree in religious education from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
She ministered as a teacher in Maryland, Alabama and Savannah, Ga. In addition, she served as a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta, where she concentrated on the needs of patients with AIDS.
When she retired from active ministry in 2000, she moved to Oregon to outline a book on HIV/AIDS and to concentrate on pastoral care of persons who were HIV-positive.
She loved the works of the famous theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and she left several of his quotes for others to contemplate.
Well loved and respected by her special circle of friends, Sister Ellen was an entertaining conversationalist, and was especially loved and admired by a group of women writers in Oregon.
She was preceded in death by her brothers John, James and Tom (Benedictine Father Matthew Thomas McSorley) and her sister Virginia, as well as her parents. Her brother Father McSorley was well known for his work as pastor of St. Helen Church in Spencer Mountain.
— Catholic News Herald