Gulf Pine Catholic • February 27, 2026 11 As Otto reminisced about her days as Sister Thea’s student, a group of students from Sister Thea Bowman School in Canton were posing for photos in front of the altar and the boxes of documents containing the story of Sister Thea’s life. Otto said if Sister Thea were alive today, her advice to these students would be simple.“Be good to people, especially your elders,” said Otto. “She loved God and was always trying to help others.” The school’s principal, Christopher Payne, said attending the Mass and closing phase is an experience his students will always remember and cherish. “I can tell you right now that this is a tremendous occasion. The fact that we were able to bless our students with the opportunity to be here is something that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives, especially with their school’s namesake being Sister Thea Bowman,” Payne said. “To see all the hard work that people have put into the process of Sister Thea becoming a saint -- that’s priceless.” Payne said his teachers work hard to educate their students about Sister Thea, sharing that “We have a Sister Thea prayer that our students learned and say every morning.” “It’s truly an honor to have a homegrown saint and the fact that we are talking about an African-America woman from the state of Mississippi, which is known for all of its racial issues is special. For her to be selected, that is something that speaks volumes on where I’m from and gives me hope that I have to educate our young minds and make sure that they’re the future leaders.” Now that the diocesan phase of Sister Thea’s cause has ended, Meg Paulino can finally breathe a sigh of relief. “A lot of hard work has gone into this process. Having this completed is huge,” Paulino, archivist and heritage curator for the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, said. “Sister Thea wrote a lot. She was a prolific writer and anything that is written in cursive has to be transcribed, which we didn’t know, so I hired an intern, Sidney Paulson who was an intern at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, who I eventually hired fulltime, and she did all of the transcriptions. We organized an army of volunteers to help and so she would send out pages to them and they would type them and send them back. That was a huge undertaking.” Paulino’s charge was getting all of the documents into a Google drive. “Everything had to be printed in very specific print font,” she explained. “Everything is very precise.” Paulino and her staff held monthly Zoom meetings with Emanuele Spedicato, the Postulator of Sister Thea’s cause, who is based at the Gregorian University in Rome. “He was a very good postulator because we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Paulino said. “I think the canonization causes are very unique depending on the visibility of that potential saint. “Sister Thea has a lot of videos available on YouTube. She spoke. She did write things, but it was not sentences. It was more like thought and verse. She was a speaker and that was the hard part. How do you get video in front of the Vatican?” As postulator, Spedicato, who is a canon lawyer, is responsible for guiding Sister Thea’s cause. He is currently the postulator for approximately 50 men and women. In the case of Sister Thea, Spedicato said the next step is to send all the documents to the Vatican. “That’s when the real study will begin,” he said. “We have to write a position, that is the summary of all the 15,000 pages that we have gathered. It’s a big document that will need to summarize the virtues, the life and the representation of the intercessory power and holiness of Sister Thea.” The next step, Spedicato, said, would be the establishment of Sister Thea’s venerability. “We would hope that in four to five years, she can be declared venerable,” he said. “Then we need one miracle that needs to be proved for her beatification and one additional miracle for her canonization.” Spedicato said there are “many favors, many graces” that have been received through Sister Thea’s intercession.” “We need to look at some cases (for potential miracles) that are very interesting,” he said. Spedicato said the Mass and closing of the Diocesan Phase was truly a special event. “The closing ceremony together with the opening session are the only public sessions that we are allowed to do,” he said. “Seeing all the people and all the happy faces that are really seeing not just the formalities, but part of the journey, is truly an honor and a joy.” Part of Brother Mickey McGrath will accompany Sister Thea on that journey. McGrath, a Religious Brother in the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, is an accomplished writer and painter who has painted 47 pictures of Sister Thea. Copies of each painting are included in the boxes being sent to Rome. McGrath is also the author of the 2008 book “This Little Light: Lessons in Living from Sister Thea Bowman.” SEE SERVANT OF GOD SISTER THEA BOWMAN, PAGE 12 Sister of God Sister Thea Bowman From page 10 Emanuele Spedicato, the Postulator of Sister Thea’s cause, who is based at the Gregorian University in Rome and Sydney Paulson, Associate Archivist of the Franciscans of Perpetual Adoration, tie ribbons around the remaining two boxes of documents supporting Sister Thea’s cause. Photo/Terry Dickson Spedicato holds up one of the final two boxes of documents, indication that the diocesan phase has come to an end. Photo/Terry Dickson
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzEwNTM=