Notre Dame to honor Dominican sisters with pro-life award for care of the dying

A congregation of Dominican sisters devoted to caring for the dying will receive Notre Dame’s 2027 award honoring a lifetime of service defending the sanctity of human life, the university announced Oct. 4.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne will be honored with the Evangelium Vitae Medal at Notre Dame during a Mass and dinner April 24, 2027. The university’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture selected the congregation in recognition of its ministry, which has provided free nursing care to people dying of cancer for more than 125 years, according to the university’s Oct. 4 announcement.

Father Robert Dowd, president of Notre Dame, praised the sisters’ service to the sick.

“In their mission to care for men and women suffering from incurable cancer, the sisters radiate the very mercy of God,” he said.

The medal’s name stems from St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, in which he affirmed the sacredness of human life and called for its protection from conception to natural death.

Mother Marie Edward, the congregation’s superior, will accept the medal on the sisters’ behalf.

The center describes recipients as “heroes in the pro-life movement,” recognizing their work to proclaim the “Gospel of Life” and defend human life from its earliest stages. The honor includes a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize.

Donations sustain the sisters’ free nursing care at homes including Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, New York, without government aid or insurance payments.

The award comes amid the sisters’ legal efforts to defend their ministry against state requirements they say would force them to violate Catholic teaching, including rules on preferred pronouns, room assignments, and restroom access based on “gender identity,” as well as accommodation of extramarital sexual activity, as Zeale News previously reported.

The sisters are seeking protection to continue their ministry despite potential fines, loss of licensing, and imprisonment for noncompliance, according to their complaint.

Their commitment reflects the mission of the congregation’s founder, Mother Mary Alphonsa, whose words Zeale News previously reported.

“We cannot cure our patients,” she said, “but we can assure the dignity and value of their final days and keep them comfortable and free of pain.”