Lay leader Donna M. Hanson dies of cancer

Published: 2005-09-26

SPOKANE, Wash. (CNS) -- Donna M. Hanson, 65, a nationally known lay leader, died Sept. 23 of cancer. Until her recent retirement she had been Spokane diocesan director of social ministries and Catholic Charities for more than a quarter-century. Spokane Bishop William S. Skylstad, who was to celebrate Hanson's funeral Mass Sept. 28 at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral in Spokane, called her "a tremendous leader, not only here in our own diocese, but around the country as well." "If we look at the growth of Catholic Charities, all the way from ... farmworker housing to institutions like the House of Charity and St. Margaret Shelter, to the more recent building of the new St. Anne Children and Family Center, it's just a remarkable, remarkable legacy," said the bishop. In 1987 Hanson addressed Pope John Paul II on behalf of the laity during his visit to San Francisco. The chairwoman of the U.S. bishops' National Advisory Council at the time, she described U.S. Catholic laity as "among the best educated and most highly theologically trained in the world" and asked the pope to help make the church more inclusive and collaborative.

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