Jubilarian 2021 - Sister Patricia Vanden Bergh

Sister Patricia Vanden Bergh was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She attended St. Philip Grade School and St. Joseph Academy. In 1960, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Louis and was received into the novitiate in 1961 as Sister Kathleen William. She received a bachelor’s degree in Latin from Fontbonne College in 1965 and a master’s degree in theology from St. John’s University in Minnesota in 1975.

Sister Patricia began teaching at St. Francis de Sales High School in Denver, Colorado (1965-70), and at Aquinas High School in Augusta, Georgia (1970-74).

She served as pastoral minister and religious education coordinator in Muskogee, Tahlequah and Wagoner in Oklahoma (1974-78), and at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Waco, Texas (1978-79).

For the next 25 years, she served in Peru as a secondary teacher, religious education coordinator and pastoral minister in the Departments de Puno, Apurimac, Arequipa, Cajamarca, Huancayo and Tacna. From 1991to 1994, she served in the Mission Office at the Congregational Center for the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis. From 2008 to 2009, Sister Patricia was a Spanish professor at Fontbonne University in St. Louis. She moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 2009 and served eight years in Hispanic pastoral ministry at St. Philip the Apostle Parish.

Retiring in 2017, Sister Patricia continues volunteering in Green Bay as a teacher for Hispanic GED and ESL students as well as with St. Vincent de Paul, the Red Cross and St. Philip Parish.