Sister Stella Catherine (Irma Teresa) Lotz, SSJ, former assistant superintendent of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Camden, died on Feb. 9. She was 88.
From 1985-2001, Sister Stella worked in the Camden Diocesan Catholic Schools Office as assistant superintendent. She continued to reside in the diocese until 2018, when she moved to Saint Joseph Villa in Flourtown, Pennsylvania.
In a profile she wrote a few years back for the Catholic Community of Christ Our Light in Cherry Hill, where she was living, Sister Stella recalled graduation from high school and discerning a career on the opera stage, even thinking about going to Europe to study.
Instead, “After much prayer I decided to apply to the (Sisters of Saint Joseph). … I found these women to be fine educators and deeply prayerful.”
She was first denied entry, but later entered the community at the age of 24.
Concluding her letter to the community, she urged anyone considering a religious vocation to pray. “Pray. Eucharist and Scripture is a given. But pray. Pray in the deep recesses of your being where only God, the Author of your being can go. Pray there — He will lead you and send you guidance.”
A private service was held Feb. 16 at Saint Joseph Villa.
Father Terry Odien, a retired priest of the Diocese of Camden, served as homilist. He recalled first meeting Sister Stella when he was working in the diocese’s Religious Education Office, and she in schools.
Eating lunch together every weekday for 10 years, he encountered a religious sister whose “passionate life … touched countless students and teachers.”
He described her as “a woman of profound faith and deep prayer.”
Sister Stella was daughter of the late Edward and Stella Lotz, and sister of the late Lorraine. She is survived by nephews, nieces, grandnieces, grandnephews, many cousins and friend, Sister Mary Berryman.
Donations in her name may be made to Saint Joseph Villa, 110 West Wissahickon Avenue, Flourtown, PA 19031.
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