In April, Sister Magdalit Bolduc, C.B., was named the Denver Archdiocese’s liaison for Jewish-Catholic relations.
In the decree appointing her, Archbishop Samuel Aquila said she has the “necessary qualities, prudence and expertise to help carry forth this important task.”
“I am grateful,” Sister Bolduc, 50, said about her new role. “It will provide the opportunity to … encounter the Jewish community of Colorado and to share Church teaching concerning the Jewish people.”
A native of Montreal, Canada, Sister Bolduc is a 27-year member of the Community of the Beatitudes, which among its key ministries educates on the Jewish roots of Christianity.
She teaches a class on Judaism called “The Hebrew Experience” at area churches, including her home parish, St. Catherine of Siena. She served 12 years in Jerusalem as a guide and has led pilgrimages to the Holy Land for more than 20 years. She is there now with a group of 46 pilgrims.
In 2005, Sister Bolduc received the Micah Award from Denver’s Jewish community for a multi-media presentation on Jewish-Catholic relations called “A Man Had Two Sons.”
She has a bachelor’s degree in art from Ottawa University in Ontario, a diploma in spiritual theology from the Teresianum Pontifical Institute in Rome and she is a graduate of the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Montreal. The daughter of a diplomat, early on she acquired an appreciation for different cultures, languages and religions.
She lived 10 years in France, where she served as spiritual director at a retreat center and as formation director for religious sisters of her community. She speaks French, English and Hebrew.
Sister Bolduc described her new position as the answer to a “deep calling” from God, who started her love for her current ministry when her community sent her to Jerusalem.
“(There) I experienced the richness of sharing the beauty of faith with the Jews,” she said. “This prepared my heart to an interfaith ministry with the Jewish people.”
The Second Vatican Council’s call in “Nostra Aetate” to live in renewed relationship with our elder brothers in faith began a slow healing of centuries of hurt and misunderstanding between Jews and Catholics that has led today to what Sister Bolduc calls a hope-filled “springtime” in the relationship.
“Trust is growing,” she said.
Her new role has opened a door in her own relationship with Jews and Catholics.
“I have talked so much to Catholics about the Jews,” she said, “that it’s time I talk to Jews about Catholics.”
