The Congregation of the Holy Cross Sisters elected Sister Sharlet Ann Wagner to become the next president of the congregation at its July 16-17 general chapter meetings. Wagner will serve as head of the Sisters for the next five years, per their election cycle, and will replace Sister Veronique Wiedower, who has served as president since 2014.
Sisters Esther Adjoa Entsiwah, Taposi Gomes, Verónica A. Fajardo and Violet Rodrigues, were also elected as new councilors.
Wagner and her council will begin to take over as president Sept. 1 and be officially inaugurated Sept. 8.
Wagner, who entered the congregation in 1988, had previously served in the congregation’s general administration as first councilor from 2014 to 2019 and as general secretary from 2009 to 2014. Since 2020, she has served as the executive director of the Newcomer Network of Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Washington, which provides legal assistance, services and support to immigrants.
Prior to her current work, Wagner provided pro bono immigration services as an attorney in various detention centers and worked alongside their personnel to establish service guidelines in Utah and California. She also served as a clinic worker in Uganda and taught high school English and journalism.
The other incoming council members have also worked in congregation leadership.
Entsiwah currently serves as a board member on the Board of Trustees for Saint Mary's College and The Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Maryland and as a general councilor for the 2019-2024 general administration. She has previously served in various headmistress and coordinator positions in Ghana and Uganda.
Gomes also currently serves as a board member on the Board of Trustees for Saint Mary's College. She has also served the congregation’s finance department as a financial consultant since 2021 and a councilor and treasurer for the Congregation’s area of Asia from 2014 to 2019. Since entering the congregation in 1989, Gomes also worked as an assistant treasurer for the area of Asia for nine years and assistant director of student affairs at Holy Cross College in Dhaka, Bangladesh for six years.
Fajardo has focused much of her work in Utah and California, focusing on social work. She has worked with Holy Cross Ministries in Salt Lake City as a mental health counselor since 2020, and from 2014 to 2017, she served in various social service agencies in Los Angeles. Since her entering the congregation in 2003, Fajardo also served survivors of domestic abuse in Utah, immigrants at Holy Cross Ministries and taught elementary education for five years.
Rodrigues is currently the vice president of the Bangladesh Conference of Religious and has been the area of Asia coordinator for the congregation between 2009 to 2014 and since 2019. She also served as headmistress for seven years at Nirmola Education Center in Kulaura, Bangladesh.
The congregation's most recent general direction statement was also approved during the July meetings, which will be promoted and enacted throughout the next five years by the newly elected council. The statement has yet to be published on their website.
