Anita Caspary

Who was Anita Caspary?

Dr. Anita Marie Caspary was an American nun and onetime mother superior who led the largest single exodus of nuns in the Catholic Church from canonical religious order vows in American history to found a lay women's organization known as the Immaculate Heart of Mary Community.

A "cradle Catholic" who took her vows in 1936 as Sister Humiliata in the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Caspary became increasingly infused with the spirit and reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which were mostly opposed by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, James Cardinal McIntyre. In December 1969, after a standoff, more than 300 sisters at an Immaculate Heart community meeting voted to become a non-canonical community, thereby freeing themselves of Rome's control. Around fifty of these continued to operate under official Vatican recognition. Approximately 250 sisters ceased teaching in the archdiocese's Catholic schools. Caspary recalled that establishing a voluntary lay community "relieved us from threats and difficulties with the church under which we lived at that time".

Caspary was president of Immaculate Heart College, which was operated by her order, from 1958–63. After the break with the Church, she taught at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and served on the staff of the Peace and Justice Center of Southern California.