Mary Ann Walsh, longtime Catholic bishops’ spokeswoman, dies at 68
Mary Ann Walsh, 68, a longtime spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, died on April 28.
She spent her final days in a hospice in Albany, New York, next to the regional convent of the Sisters of Mercy, the religious order she entered as a 17-year-old novice drawn to their commitment to serving the poor. She had cancer.
She worked at the communications office of the U.S. hierarchy for 20 years, a time of internal divisions among the bishops and, after 2002, the explosion of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Walsh joked that her service at the USCCB would cut years off her time in purgatory.
