The death of Sister M. Immolata Wetter, in the Central Clinic, Augsburg, in the early afternoon of 8 November 2005, was a very great shock for the Mary Ward Sisters ( formerly English Ladies) She had been taken into the clinic the day before with an acute illness. Her death is a cause of deep sorrow for every member of the Congregation.

M. Immolata Wetter, baptised Elisabeth Hedwig, was born on 13.12.1913 in Landau/Pfalz, daughter of locomotive superintendent  Peter and his wife Hedwig Agnes Wetter. With her sister Hildegard and her brother Friedrich she grew up in the security of a deeply Catholic Christian family. For many years Hildegard was a teacher in the grammar school of the then English Ladies in Augsburg. The present Cardinal Friedrich Wetter was appointed Bishop of Speyer in 1968 and Archbishop of Munich in1982.  

Elisabeth entered the Institute in Augsburg as a candidate on 10.04.1929, passed her Abitur (A Level) exams in 1932, was clothed as Mater Immolata  on 26.08.1933 and made her First Profession on 26.08.1935. In the same year she began to study German, History and French in Munich, to prepare herself as a grammar school teacher. In 1938 she set about teaching with zeal and enthusiasm in what is today the Maria-Ward-Gymnasium, until the government of the Third Reich confiscated convent schools from the Sisters in 1941. For five years Mater Immolata worked as a carer for young girls with the Caritas organisation in Augsburg, until in 1946 she was allowed to teach ‘her’ beloved pupils once again. She continued to be in active contact with old girls into extreme old age. It was not easy for M. Immolata (now ‘Sister’) to say goodbye to school when she was summoned to Rome in October 1953 to work on the process for the canonisation of the foundress, Mary Ward. Thanks to the thoroughness of her research, Sister Immolata has remained until the present day ‘the’ expert on the history of Mary Ward’s Institute. She lived to see the fulfilment of the foundress’s wish for her Institute to bear the name of Jesus; from 30.01.2004 Maria Ward’s foundation has been known as the Congregatio Jesu.

Work on the Causa (the canonisation of Maria Ward) was interrupted for nearly nine years,  when on 07.01.1976 Sister Immolata was elected General Superior of the worldwide Institute, an office which she exercised  until 21.08.1984 with personal dedication and total commitment.

It was a special joy for the Congregatio Jesu when on 19 February 1993 the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Augsburg bestowed on Sister M. Immolata Wetter the degree of honorary Doctor. On 08.06.1977 she received the Bavarian Order of Merit and on 05.05.1983 the Distinguished Service Medal, First Class, of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

M. Immolata Wetter’s most outstanding characteristic, however, was her tireless creativity. In many publications she passed on her learning to ‘Hers’ and to many other interested people. On 30.01.2000 she returned from Rome to Augsburg and wrote, along with other works, her last book, ‘Mary Ward under the shadow of the Inquisition, 1630-1637’, published in 2003 by Verlag Sankt Michaelsbund, Munich.

The Congregatio Jesu over the whole world thanks the Lord for the gift to it of such a great person,  and is aware of its responsibility for her intellectual and spiritual heritage.

M. Clementine Nagel CJ