“I just knew that I wanted to help people,” Sr Roma Banducci RSM told The Record in 2006, recalling why she had chosen religious life.
Sr Roma last week Thursday 24 September joined Sr Kerry Willison RSM for their anniversary celebrations, bringing together two women whose vocations began with the Mercy Sisters they knew as children.
The occasion marked Sr Kerry’s 50 years of profession, while Sr Roma’s first vows in 1956 place her jubilee at 70 years.
Joining Sr Roma & Sr Kerry for the occasion was Perth Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey, Institute of the Sisters of Mercy Australia and PNG, WA Community Leader Sr Helen Nolen RSM, and Fr Peter Bianchini who celebrated Mass, in addition to close family members, friends and fellow Sisters.
Sr Roma’s story began among the market gardens of Gwelup. Born in Perth, she grew up as one of five children, with a father from Tuscany and an Australian mother.
At St Theresa’s school she met the Sisters of Mercy, whose generosity she remembered long after leaving the classroom.
“We were fairly poor back then but the sisters were always very generous and shared what they had,” she said in the 2006 interview.
She also recalled the close ties between neighbouring families.
“We were one big family of migrants,” she said. “It was often said that the Irish families tended the cows which gave milk to the community and the Italian families grew the vegetables.”
There was room for mischief, too. “I remember getting caught by the sisters for putting a bob-tail lizard in their car,” Sr Roma recalled with a laugh.
She left school at 14 to help her parents in the market garden, working alongside them until she was 18. By then, she wanted to join a religious order where she could help others.
Sr Roma entered the Mercy congregation in 1953, took her first vows three years later and made her final profession at St Mary’s Convent, Leederville, in 1959.
For Sr Kerry, the Sisters’ care for her family also helped shape her vocation. She attended Our Lady of Lourdes in Nollamara and remembered their kindness to her mother during years of illness.
A retreat with the Sisters of Mercy at the ages of 17 helped her decide to enter the convent.
“When I entered, I couldn’t have imagined all the things I would end up doing. I’m grateful for those opportunities, but especially for the people I’ve shared them with.”
She studied at Churchlands Teachers’ College, taught at St Gerard’s in Mirrabooka from 1981 to 1984, then moved to St Mary’s in Leederville, later Aranmore Catholic College, in 1985.
There she taught English and Religious Education and became head of Religious Education. Her colleagues gave her a Claddagh ring when she left, a gift she later described as a treasure.
Postgraduate study in pastoral ministry in Boston followed. In 1992, she became the Archdiocese’s Director of Liturgy, beginning more than three decades of work that concluded in 2023.
Her contribution included the restoration of St Mary’s Cathedral, the closing Mass of the Australian Catholic Youth Festival in 2019 and the opening Mass of the Plenary Council in 2021.
At the Cathedral, she helped prepare briefs for artists through her work on the Arts and Furnishing and Project committees.
At her farewell, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB acknowledged both her creativity and her fidelity in helping shape the Archdiocese’s liturgical life.
“Liturgy, to me, is prayer,” Sr Kerry told The Record in 2016.
“I’m very grateful to be able to celebrate with Roma. Having our families, friends and Sisters together means a lot. They’ve shared so much of our lives, and this is their celebration too.”