Diocese of Owensboro Celebrates Ursuline Elections

Bishop Medley with Ursulines
In this 2009 file photo, Bishop-elect Medley speaks with Ursuline Sisters Amelia Stenger and Pam Mueller at Brescia University during the Dec. 15, 2009 press conference at Brescia University announcing him as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Owensboro.

By Elizabeth Wong Barnstead

On Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2015, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph elected five sisters to serve on the Ursuline Leadership Council.

Sister Amelia Stenger, OSU, was elected as congregational leader; Sister Kathleen Condry, OSU, was elected as assistant congregational leader; Sister Pam Mueller, OSU, was elected as a councilor; Sister Judith Nell Riney, OSU, was elected as a councilor; and Sister Pat Lynch, OSU, was elected as a councilor.

All five sisters will begin their term on July 17, 2016 and serve for six years.

“I want to join the Ursuline Sisters in thanksgiving as the Holy Spirit has again led their community in the selection of their new leadership for the coming years,” said Bishop William F. Medley of the Diocese of Owensboro, where the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph reside in Kentucky.

Bishop Medley said that the sisters chose women “of broad educational and pastoral experience.”

“The new congregational leader, Sister Amelia Stenger, has been a teacher, principal, administrator and development director,” the bishop added. “The Ursulines have called upon her before and now entrust her to lead them in discerning God’s ways.”

Sister Stenger currently serves as director of development for the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph.

She previously served as a teacher, principal, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Owensboro, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Louisville, and the director of the Mount St. Joseph Conference and Retreat Center.

Sister Condry currently serves as a pastoral minister for the Church of the Nativity in Kansas.

Previously, she served as the superior of the Ursuline Sisters of Paola, Kansas, prior to her community’s 2008 merger with the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph. She also served in her native Kansas as a teacher, both assistant principal and principal, as an assistant superintendent and in administrative roles for area schools.

Sister Mueller currently serves as director of campus ministry for Brescia University in Owensboro.

Sister Mueller previously served as a teacher, a speech-language pathologist, a professor and a director of a speech and hearing clinic, as well as vocations director for the Ursulines.

Sister Riney currently serves as director of library services at Brescia University.

Prior to becoming Brescia’s library services director in 1987, she served as a both a teacher and a librarian in various schools in Kentucky.

Sister Lynch currently serves as office manager and campus minister at the Didde Catholic Campus Center at Emporia State University in Kansas.

Sister Lynch, who was also an Ursuline Sister of Paola prior to the merger, was superior of the community before Sister Condry’s term as superior. She has served in several capacities including ministry to individuals with developmental disabilities, speech therapy, speech pathology, campus outreach ministry and education coordination.