University of Notre Dame’s ethics center to give 2027 pro-life award to Dominican sisters

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame will present the 2027 Evangelium Vitae Medal to the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. The center plans to present the award to Mother Superior Marie Edward, O.P., during a Mass and dinner at the university on April 24, 2027.

The center selected the congregation for its century of service to poor and dying people. Based in Hawthorne, New York, the sisters care for impoverished men and women dying from cancer. The congregation was founded in 1900 by Mother Mary Alphonsa, who was born Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Notre Dame President Father Robert Dowd, CSC, said the sisters fulfill the command to comfort the sick and shelter the homeless through their direct service to the poor. Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the ethics center, described the sisters as an example of Christian charity. The medal is named after Pope St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical and is presented annually on Respect Life Sunday.