As victims' advocate, nun's job is to help people get lives back

Published: 2004-05-05

METUCHEN, N.J. (CNS) -- In the small office that she shares with two fellow staff members, Mercy Sister Elizabeth O'Hara is the keeper of stories. She keeps them in the file cabinets that fill one wall in her Catholic Charities' office and she updates them in her computer where she compiles statistics and organizational charts. But most importantly, she holds these stories in her heart, and cannot retell them without emotion straining her voice and tears filling her eyes. That is because Sister Elizabeth, coordinator of disaster relief services for Catholic Charities in the Metuchen Diocese, knows the stories of victims and survivors of the devastating floods of Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999, and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Her job is to help people whose lives were forever altered by these tragedies and to see that they receive as much support and funding as is available. Sister Elizabeth recently took on the added role of serving as the diocese's appointed advocate for sex abuse victims.

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